The Hodgeheg

Max is a hedgehog who lives with his family in a nice little home, but unfortunately on the wrong side of the road from the Park, with its beautiful lily pond, and more importantly its juicy slugs, worms and snails! The busy road is a dangerous barrier but Max notices that humans seem to cross it quite easily. If they can, why can't hedgehogs? So Max sets out on a quest to find a safe way to reach the Park. His first attempt ends in a nasty bump on the head, and Max finds when he tries to speak his words are all mixed up. He is now a Hodgeheg, not a hedgehog, but he is still determined to fulfil his mission. After some careful detective work, Max eventually discovers the best way to cross the road - with the help of the lollipop lady, of course!

Dick King-Smith served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the county of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. Later he taught at a village primary school. His first book, The Fox Busters, was published in 1978. He wrote a great number of children's books, including The Sheep-Pig (winner of the Guardian Award and filmed as Babe), Harry's Mad, Noah's Brother, The Hodgeheg, Martin's Mice, Ace, The Cuckoo Child and Harriet's Hare (winner of the Children's Book Award in 1995). At the British Book Awards in 1991 he was voted Children's Author of the Year. In 2009 he was made OBE for services to children's literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.