Tarka the Otter

LoveReading4Kids Says

This is the classic story of an otter living in the Devonshire countryside which captures the feel of life in the wild as seen through the otter's own eyes. It is full of joy and wonder, as well as death, sadness and brutality and yet it is an inspirational portrait of a vanished time, seen from Tarka's viewpoint.

Often harrowing, the story details Tarka's constant battle with the otter hounds, and in particular their fearsome leader Deadlock. Most of us will have never seen an otter in the wild or be likely to see one and yet once you've read the story of Tarka the Otter you will not only know exactly what they look like, you will also know their mannerisms and crucially having read the novel, you will also realise how man's impact almost drove them to extinction.

A message from Michael Morpurgo about Henry Williamson and his writing:
'It is a rare gift indeed for a storyteller to be a poet as much as a storymaker, to tell a tale so deeply engaging that the reader wants to know what will happen and never wants it to end, and yet at the same tells it in such a way as to leave a reader wide-eyed with amazement at the sheer intensity of feeling that can be induced by the word-magic of a poet.  Henry Williamson is just such a story-maker poet.'

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About Tarka the Otter

"Twilight over meadow and water, the eve-star shining above the hill, and Old Nog the heron crying kra-a-ark! as his slow dark wings carried him down to the estuary."A beautiful hardback gift edition of one of the most famous animal stories in children's literature. TARKA THE OTTER is the classic story of an otter living in the Devonshire countryside which captures the feel of life in the wild as seen through the otter's own eyes. The story's atmosphere and detail make it easy to see why Tarka has become one of the best-loved creatures in world literature.Henry William Williamson was born in 1895 in Brockley, south-east London. The then semi-rural location provided easy access to the countryside, and he developed a deep love of nature throughout his childhood. He became a prolific author known for his natural and social history novels. He won the Hawthornden Prize for literatrure in 1928 for Tarka the Otter.

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