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Tom Moorhouse lives in Oxford, where he enjoys the refreshing and perpetual rain. When not writing fiction he works as an ecologist at Oxford University's Zoology Department. Over the years he has met quite a lot of wildlife. Most of it tried to bite him. He loves hiking up mountains, walking through woods, climbing on rocks and generally being weather-beaten outdoors. Pouring words into books makes Tom very happy. His novels include The Rising, River Singers, and Trickster.
Tom talks in greater detail about The River Singers (this is an extended version of the video on the book page.)
Tom Moorhouse ingeniously breathes new life into Toad of Toad Hall in this engaging chapter book. In an inspired bit of plotting, the young heroes of his book Teejay, Ratty and Mo, descendants of the original Wind in the Willows characters, discover poor Toad frozen in the icehouse beneath Toad Hall, left there years ago by the Weasels who have their beady eyes on his property. Before you can say ‘Poop Poop’ Mr Toad has thawed out and in typically enthusiastic manner is embracing our brave new world and its shiny gadgets. The style is very different to Kenneth Grahame’s but Moorhouse captures the absolute essence of Mr Toad, who is the same impetuous, childish character, alternately egotistical and generous, foolish and brave. The story rattles along with regular nods to the original, and Holly Swain’s illustrations add to the adventure, humour and general warmth.
With a naturalist's expertise the author has created a very believable animal civilisation to rival Watership Down in its depth and complexity, as well as page turning adventure.
This thrilling follow-up to the highly-acclaimed novel, The River Singers, will transport readers into a vivid world of riverbank creatures, where excitement and danger are never far away. With beautiful black and white illustrations throughout by Simon Mendez these combine with great storytelling draw the reader into the sights and sounds of the riverbank and the world of the vole.
Everyone loves the ebullient and outrageous Mr Toad, one of the heroes of Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows. Tom Moorhouse brings him to life in this modern retelling which captures all the drama of Mr Toad’s famous and deadly dangerous antics when he gets behind the wheel as well as his wonderful friendships with Mole, Ratty and Badger. David Roberts illustrations are warm and funny and bring the rich social life of the river bank vividly to life.
Everyone loves the ebullient and outrageous Mr Toad, one of the heroes of Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows. Tom Moorhouse brings him to life in this modern retelling which captures all the drama of Mr Toad’s famous and deadly dangerous antics when he gets behind the wheel as well as his wonderful friendships with Mole, Ratty and Badger. David Roberts illustrations are warm and funny and bring the rich social life of the river bank vividly to life.
This thrilling follow-up to the highly-acclaimed novel, The River Singers, will transport readers into a vivid world of riverbank creatures, where excitement and danger are never far away. With beautiful black and white illustrations throughout by Simon Mendez these combine with great storytelling draw the reader into the sights and sounds of the riverbank and the world of the vole.
October 2013 Debut of the Month In the tradition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Richard Adams’s Watership Down, The River Singers captures the desperate adventures of a family of water voles struggling survive as their habitat changes. Sylvan and his younger siblings are only just prepared for the world of the river when their lives are thrown into confusion following the violent death of their mother. Sylvan knows he must lead his family to a new home. Their journey takes them along the river which must now be their guide but the waters are treacherous and there is great danger all around them from the other animals that live along its banks. A Piece of Passion from Liz Cross, Children’s Publisher, Oxford University Press Among all the riches in the children’s book world, there are some books that stand out, some books that are truly special and I am delighted that we have found just such a book in The River Singers. Lyrical yet gripping… with characters that spring from the page fully-formed. Packed with witty, authentic dialogue, and filled with moments of genuine peril, this is a book to fall in love with.
One of our Books of the Year 2014 In the tradition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Richard Adams’s Watership Down, The River Singers captures the desperate adventures of a family of water voles struggling survive as their habitat changes. Sylvan and his younger siblings are only just prepared for the world of the river when their lives are thrown into confusion following the violent death of their mother. Sylvan knows he must lead his family to a new home. Their journey takes them along the river which must now be their guide but the waters are treacherous and there is great danger all around them from the other animals that live along its banks. A Piece of Passion from Liz Cross, Children’s Publisher, Oxford University Press Among all the riches in the children’s book world, there are some books that stand out, some books that are truly special and I am delighted that we have found just such a book in The River Singers. Lyrical yet gripping… with characters that spring from the page fully-formed. Packed with witty, authentic dialogue, and filled with moments of genuine peril, this is a book to fall in love with.
October 2013 Debut of the Month In the tradition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Richard Adams’s Watership Down, The River Singers captures the desperate adventures of a family of water voles struggling survive as their habitat changes. Sylvan and his younger siblings are only just prepared for the world of the river when their lives are thrown into confusion following the violent death of their mother. Sylvan knows he must lead his family to a new home. Their journey takes them along the river which must now be their guide but the waters are treacherous and there is great danger all around them from the other animals that live along its banks. A Piece of Passion from Liz Cross, Children’s Publisher, Oxford University Press Among all the riches in the children’s book world, there are some books that stand out, some books that are truly special and I am delighted that we have found just such a book in The River Singers. Lyrical yet gripping… with characters that spring from the page fully-formed. Packed with witty, authentic dialogue, and filled with moments of genuine peril, this is a book to fall in love with.
One of our Books of the Year 2014 In the tradition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Richard Adams’s Watership Down, The River Singers captures the desperate adventures of a family of water voles struggling survive as their habitat changes. Sylvan and his younger siblings are only just prepared for the world of the river when their lives are thrown into confusion following the violent death of their mother. Sylvan knows he must lead his family to a new home. Their journey takes them along the river which must now be their guide but the waters are treacherous and there is great danger all around them from the other animals that live along its banks. A Piece of Passion from Liz Cross, Children’s Publisher, Oxford University Press Among all the riches in the children’s book world, there are some books that stand out, some books that are truly special and I am delighted that we have found just such a book in The River Singers. Lyrical yet gripping… with characters that spring from the page fully-formed. Packed with witty, authentic dialogue, and filled with moments of genuine peril, this is a book to fall in love with.
A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE WEEK: 'particularly enjoyable' 'Somehow laugh-out-loud funny - passionate, warm and full of fascinating insights into the eccentric world of the field naturalist.' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding Water voles are small, brownish, bewhiskered and charming. Made famous by 'Ratty' in The Wind in the Willows, once they were a ubiquitous part of our waterways. They were a totem of our rivers. Now, however, they are nearly gone. This is their story, and the story of a conservationist with a wild hope: that he could bring them back. Tom Moorhouse spent eleven years beside rivers, fens, canals, lakes and streams, researching British wildlife. Quite a lot of it tried to bite him. He studied four main species - two native and endangered, two invasive and endangering - beginning with water voles. He wanted to solve their conservation problems. He wanted to put things right. This book is about whether it worked, and what he learnt - and about what those lessons mean, not just for water voles but for all the world's wildlife. It is a book for anyone who has watched ripples spread on lazy waters, and wondered what moves beneath. Or who has waited in quiet hope for a rustle in the reeds, the munch of a stem, or the patter of unseen paws. Praise for Tom Moorhouse: 'The pages of this book are shot through with quicksilver light reflected from wet fur - not a lament for our rivers but a chorus of hope for their future.' - Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path 'Beautiful and important. Tom's book is extraordinary in its gentle curiosity and sympathy for his subjects. I love this book.' - Sir Tim Smit KBE, Executive Vice-Chairman and Co-founder of the Eden Project 'Terrific. Lightly but beautifully written. Very moving. Water voles are adorable little beasts. They are also tough, randy and stroppy, as Tom Moorhouse makes clear in this wry, amusing account of the often bloody, painful and frustrating business of conservation fieldwork. 'I hold stubbornly to optimism,' he declares, and his Elegy for a River demands that we do the same.' - Christopher Somerville, walking correspondent for The Times and author of The January Man
There's something strange in the skies over Toad Hall - it's an airborne amphibian! Toad has a new paraglider but not the skill to control it. And when his haphazard flight - all recorded on his head-cam - reveals that whole swathes of the Wild Wood have vanished, it's up to Toad to catch the culprits! With the help of Teejay, Ratty, and Mo, Mr Toad has launched his riskiest mission yet. Can he stop the environmentally unfriendly weasels, or will Operation Toad leave him dangling in danger? With outrageous antics from Mr Toad, action-packed adventure from the start, and stylish two-colour illustrations from Holly Swain that capture all the comedy, this is a fantastic package for young readers.
Mr Toad has the builders in, and they're busy filling Toad Hall with awesome gizmos and gadgets. But there's something odd about them: why don't their bushy tails look quite right? And why are they loading Mr Toad's furniture into their van? Squirrel skulduggery! Greedy weasels! Mr Toad will need help from Teejay, Ratty, and Mo to have a REMOTE chance of defending his home. Can he keep his property safe, or will Toad Hall be in lockdown? From the author of The River Singers and The Rising, this stylishly illustrated story is inspired by The Wind in the Willows.
Tom Moorhouse ingeniously breathes new life into Toad of Toad Hall in this engaging chapter book. In an inspired bit of plotting, the young heroes of his book Teejay, Ratty and Mo, descendants of the original Wind in the Willows characters, discover poor Toad frozen in the icehouse beneath Toad Hall, left there years ago by the Weasels who have their beady eyes on his property. Before you can say ‘Poop Poop’ Mr Toad has thawed out and in typically enthusiastic manner is embracing our brave new world and its shiny gadgets. The style is very different to Kenneth Grahame’s but Moorhouse captures the absolute essence of Mr Toad, who is the same impetuous, childish character, alternately egotistical and generous, foolish and brave. The story rattles along with regular nods to the original, and Holly Swain’s illustrations add to the adventure, humour and general warmth.
Willow and Alder love racing down the river rapids and don't let the strong currents scare them. But will their newly-discovered taste for crayfish lead them into trouble? Oxford Reading Tree All Stars is an engaging chapter fiction series which combines age-appropriate content with imaginative stories, perfect for inspiring and stretching able infants. The series develops comprehension skills and provides a wide variety of fiction topics and styles, alongside illustrations that aid understanding. All the books in this series are carefully levelled, so it's easy to match every child to the right book - one which will develop their reading skills and fuel their love of reading. Help with children's reading development is also available at www.oxfordowl.co.uk.
With a naturalist's expertise the author has created a very believable animal civilisation to rival Watership Down in its depth and complexity, as well as page turning adventure.
Streif wurde stocksteif. Dort, wo sie noch vor einer Sekunde gestanden hatte, waren jetzt wei gefiederte Beine, ein kraftiger Korper, ein grausam gebogener Schnabel sowie zwei schwarze Augen in einem breiten, weilichen Gesicht. Die Eule streckte sich. Sie hob eine Kralle ... Seit Sylvan, Orris und Aven gemeinsam mit ihrem Freund, der Ratte Fodur, ein Territorium im Marschland gefunden haben, ist etwas Zeit vergangen. Nun regnet es seit Wochen unaufhrlich, und die Wasser steigen und steigen. Als Avens Kinder Streif und Kale pltzlich spurlos verschwinden, machen sich Sylvan und Fodur auf die Suche nach ihnen - und geraten erneut in ein aufregendes Abenteuer. Denn diesmal ist der Groe Fluss ihr Feind ... und er ist nicht der einzige!"e;Nicht nur spannend, sondern auch ein liebevolles Pldoyer fr Toleranz"e;. (Westflische Nachrichten)
October 2013 Debut of the Month In the tradition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Richard Adams’s Watership Down, The River Singers captures the desperate adventures of a family of water voles struggling survive as their habitat changes. Sylvan and his younger siblings are only just prepared for the world of the river when their lives are thrown into confusion following the violent death of their mother. Sylvan knows he must lead his family to a new home. Their journey takes them along the river which must now be their guide but the waters are treacherous and there is great danger all around them from the other animals that live along its banks. A Piece of Passion from Liz Cross, Children’s Publisher, Oxford University Press Among all the riches in the children’s book world, there are some books that stand out, some books that are truly special and I am delighted that we have found just such a book in The River Singers. Lyrical yet gripping… with characters that spring from the page fully-formed. Packed with witty, authentic dialogue, and filled with moments of genuine peril, this is a book to fall in love with.
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