A Year at Sheepfold Farm

Three hardback originals put together to make a substantial paperback showing and telling the story of a year in the life of a sheep-farming family. Through the three sections of the book the family and the old farmhands are constant characters. Others, sheep shearers, rustlers and numerous scenefillers, are deftly sketched in. But the main characters are the sheep. In the first section lambing brings its inevitable orphans, difficult ewes and sorry deaths. Summer requires the sheep to be wormed, dipped and shorn. With autumn comes the shows and the tupping. Each season has its hazards. Each time the children of the family are directly involved. Young readers see life through their eyes and so have many of their questions raised for them and answered. I firmly believe that as much can be learned through good narrative as through text books, and this is an informative story. The text, though, is occasionally stilted and the conversation decidedly wooden. The black and white illustrations on the other hand are really superb. With a beautiful clarity Susan Williams illustrates and extends the text. (Interesting this -- she is far more poetic about the sheep in her pictures than in her text.) Shearing implements and sheep farming plant are shown in satisfying detail; scenes of market, gardening or lorry loading are full of incident. Children and adults will love them, and the book could be fruitfully used across a wide age range. it will five children beautiful and realistic insight into sheep farming and will fulfill, albeit vicariously, many a dream. Who hasn't, cast as a shepherded in the Nativity Play, longed for a real lamb to take to the Crib. Read on...