Ted Hughes wrote a series of stories for children from the early 1960s through until 1995 about how the world, and the creatures in it, came into being. They are collected here in one volume for the first time. These are richly told tales of sparkling intensity about animals finding their form, and God's struggle to understand what he has created.
How the whale became and other tales of the early world Synopsis
Meet the Polar Bear whose obsession with her snowy white fur is so great that she can only live in a landscape surrounded by her own reflection; the Whale, growing in God's garden beside the carrots; King Leo, who began life because God was hungry for his sausages; poor Parrot's painful defeat in the marriage song contest at the wedding of Man and Woman; and Sparrow's heroic battle against the bird-swallowing Black Hole.
There are stories here to suit children from four to fourteen, whether for reading aloud or alone.
Ted Hughes is widely considered one of the greatest poets of his generation and indeed one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He was born in Yorkshire in 1930, and was Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998. In 1974 Hughes was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In 1977 he was awarded an OBE for services to Literature, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1998. His most widely read classic children’s story The Iron Man, has been adapted for both stage and screen, and is regarded as one of the greatest children’s books of all time.
