Wendover Bookshop - The Little Grey Men / Down The Bright Stream, BB

The last gnomes in Britain live by a bubbling brook, under an oak tree which grows on the banks of the Folly. Their names are Dodder, Baldmoney, Cloudberry and Sneezewort.

The gnomes are perfectly happy with their life, except, that is, for Cloudberry. Restless, and longing for adventure, he sets off determined to discover what lies beyond the Folly. But when he doesn't return, it is up to the remaining brothers to build a boat and set out on a perilous journey to find him.

This edition is published with the author's original black & white illustrations.

The Little Grey Men was winner of the Carnegie Medal in 1942.

Down the Bright Stream

B.B. (D.J. Watkins-Pitchford)
Oxford, 2001 (first published in 1948)
Paperback. 242pp. illus. £5.99
to order

Dodder, Baldmoney, Cloudberry and Sneezewort are the last gnomes left in England and we find them tucked up in their cosy home for winter.

But suddenly they are awoken from their sleep with the terrible news that the Folly is drying up. The brothers are thrust into danger as they sail away from home, along the Folly, in search of a place where they can be truly safe.

B.B. was better known as the natural history book illustrator Denys Watkins-Pitchford. His deep love of nature and country life was combined with fantasy, but stemmed from traditional country values, such as hunting and fishing (BB is a particular size of shot), and may draw a bemused response from the environmentally young of today.

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if you like this book we recommend:

A Traveller In Time by Alison Uttley

The Redwall series of books by Brian Jacques

Wind In the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.