The Hodgeheg

by Dick King-Smith

Published 23 February 1989

The Hodgeheg by Dick King-Smith is a much-loved classic! Now part of the collectible Puffin Modern Classics series.

Max, the hedgehog
who becomes a hodgeheg,
who becomes a hero!

Max's family dreams of reaching the Park. But no one has ever found a safe way of crossing the very busy road. Young Max, who is brighter than the average hedgehog, is determined to solve the problem.

'A nicely told, darkly humorous story about how hedgehogs can avoid getting squashed on the road' - Guardian

'A huge favourite' - Observer

Dick King-Smith served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the country of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. 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 Queen's Nose, Martin's Mice, Ace, The Cuckoo Child and Harriet's Hare (winner of the Children's Book Award in 1995). In 2009 he was made an OBE for services to children's literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.


The Mouse Butcher

by Dick King-Smith

Published 1 January 1920
On an island inhabited solely by cats, expert hunter, Tom Plug, hires himself out to the aristocratic, but very hungry, Bampton-Bush family as provider of food.