Plop is a baby barn owl. He is perfect in every way - except for one thing. He's afraid of the dark! One day Suzy the cat finds herself flying away in a hot-air balloon. How is Suzy going to find her way home? Hilda is a small, speckled hen. When she makes up her mind to visit her new cousin chicks nothing can stop her!
Filled with gentle humour and comfort, Jill Tomlinson's animal stories have been enjoyed by children who want to snuggle down with a good read for decades. This edition containing The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, The Cat Who Wanted to go Home and The Hen Who Wouldn't Give Up is stunningly illustrated by Paul Howard - making it a terrific collection of stories for young readers.
Jill Tomlinson never intended to be a writer. She trained as an opera singer, and then decided to have a family whilst her voice matured. But illness intervened, and she had to find another outlet for her energies. She started on a journalism course, and by the third lesson decided she wanted to write for children. So she did!
It did not come easily. Her first story, The Bus who went to Church, was rejected by sixteen publishers before it was accepted for a picture book. Several other picture books followed until she felt a need to stretch herself further. She wrote five short stories about a hen wanting to visit an aunt and her chicks, and Methuen thought that if she wrote another five stories on the same theme the book would fit well into their new ‘Read Aloud’ series.
