The Crowstarver

By Dick King-Smith

From the moment he's left as a foundling in a lambing-pen on Outoverdown Farm, Spider Sparrow is surrounded by animals. Amazingly, every animal who meets him implicitly trusts the young boy & he loves... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0552546038
• ISBN13: 9780552546034
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Corgi Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.5" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Another winner from DKS

The beauty of this story is in its simplicity. It is a tale of a mentally handicapped foundling, raised by a couple of farmers in the England of WWII. The plot is simple and slow, but the characterisation is captivating. The book sneaks up on you, so by the end you are emotionally attached to the characters, quite by accident. My nine year old son read this to me as his school reader and we were astionished to find ourselves weeping together at the end (OK, so we're a sentimental family). Well done, MR King-Smith.

A wonderfully moving story about an autistic child

This book is set in rural England in the 30's and 40's. It gives a moving portrait of an autistic boy. He is very low functioning in many ways, but is still portrayed with love and dignity, in a way that should enable most "normal" children to relate to him in a positive way. The approach is emotional, rather than cognitive, and the author has put in a bit of magic to make things more interesting, but I think this is much better than the textbook approach for "explaining" autsm to other children.Also available in audio tape form.