Nigel Hinton

Well, the four book saga that I started when I was seven (well my teacher started) is finally done and I don't know that I'm entirely happy about it. It was a great story, perhaps slightly more grown up than the earlier books with some philosophical ideas being explored (albeit in a simplistic manner) but a fun romp all the same. It did not feel like the end of the story to me. Yea sure, they defeated the Prince of Darkness but it wasn't a complete defeat. I was hoping for the overall destruction of the big bad.… (mere)

The last time I saw a book by Hinton I must have been around 10 years old, that book was Buddy and I studied it in school. I never realised he had also written books for adults so when I spotted Heart of the Valley I had to pick it up.

We follow a year in the life of a family of Dunnocks(Hedge Sparrows) and all the trials and tribulations that follow. As with other great tales of the genre (Tarka the Otter springs to mind) it isn't all nice and fluffy, and the grim reality of being a small animal in the Kent countryside is brought home. Predators and weather threaten your life at every moment and it's a wonder that anything really flourishes, after all, how many sparrows do we all see everyday and never give a thought to their little lives?

I suppose my favourite thing about Heart is that it manages to be thought provoking without being preachy, a skill many of today's authors could do with acquiring. It makes you realise the impact your own actions have on surrounding wildlife, for instance the lady who feeds the birds everyday, when she falls ill and cannot get to the garden then go unfed which results in the death of some. But the biggest realisation for me came in the form of when humans intervene and rescue animals. I have never really thought that if I rescue an injured owl then you are saving that one life but in all reality condemning hundreds of its prey to their death. Would those animals have otherwise survived and helped their own population flourish?

It lost a star for me only because of when it detoured into the personal lives of the human family, I really wanted the book to remain with the animals and it slightly sidetracked me.,

All in all, this book will stay with me a long time, and has given a whole new appreciation of the British countryside. What more could a book do?… (mere)