Just Binnie

Dick King-Smith (1922-2011) served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the county of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. Later he taught at a village primary school. His first book, The Fox Busters, was published in 1978. He went onto write a great many more children's books, including The Sheep-Pig (winner of the Guardian Award and filmed as Babe), Harry's Mad, Noah's Brother, The Hodgeheg, Martin's Mice, Ace, The Cuckoo Child and Harriet's Hare (winner of the Children's Book Award in 1995). At the British Book Awards in 1991 he was voted Children's Author of the Year. In 2009 he was made OBE for services to children's literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.

Concentrating mainly on children's titles, Jan Francis has read (and sometimes sung on) well over 100 works for children alone, delighting young listeners and, judging by the feedback reviews on internet sites, earning the gratitude of parents. Jan's reading skills have also been utilised on more adult titles, both classic and contemporary, and her readings can be regularly heard on the digital radio spoken-word station Oneword.