Having just completed a wonderful exploration of Elizabethan England, and as a lover of animals, I was intrigued by the combination of these two themes in this book. The characters, human and bear, are unforgettable. The scenes of mistreatment are haunting, especially since they are based on fact. As a school librarian, I would recommend this book to kids older than 5th grade who want a gripping adventure that shows what it was REALLY like in Shakespeare's England. But beware--the powerful depiction of callousness and savagery is NOT for everyone. This book will stay with you long after you have read it.

Fans of the Church Mice series will love this book about a Hen Odyssey across the British countryside. Hetty (a birdbrain) is convinced by her slightly older and marginally more intelligent (but rather impractical) friend Harriet that life would be better somewhere other than the barnyard. This takes them to increasingly worse places, including a fox hole (so nice and cosy), the Michelangelo shopping precinct (which seems to be entirely made up of shops belonging to the Scroggins family), and the local Lost Property office (where they are sold off by the Scroggins & Scroggins auction house).

Fortunately they manage to excape the dastardly clutches of the Techno-Egg and Fowlfare organisations, and probably live happily ever after.

This is a definite must-read for anyone who likes droll English humour, although it's a bit hard to find.