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? ( )

Im klirrenden Januar beginnt die Geschichte der Heckenbraunelle. Es gibt nichts mehr zu essen, alles ist im Schneesturm erfroren. Der kleine Vogel verlässt sein Revier, macht sich auf die Suche und findet schließlich Unterschlupf in einer Scheune. Ein Jahr begleiten wir die Heckenbraunelle, von dem erfolgreichen Überstehen des eiskalten Winters über die Suche nach einem treuen Gefährten bis zum mühsamen Nestbau in einer Hecke. Leben und Tod liegen dicht beieinander.

Das alles passiert in einem kleinen englischen Tal. Es erzählt von den Menschen, die dort wohnen, von den Tieren, die alle auf ihre eigene Art und Weise um die Erhaltung ihrer Art kämpfen. Eine bewegendes Jahr, das wir als Leser begleiten dürfen, obwohl die Hauptperson so klein ist.

This is a story intended for adults from children's novelist, Nigel Hinton. He is perhaps better known for classics like "Buddy" and "Buddy's Song" (Buddy was dramatised by children's BBC and starred Roger Daltry).

To me, this book was the literary equivalent of a silent movie, chronicling a year in the life of a family of Dunnocks (Hedge Sparrows) in a rural Kent.

And rural Kent is anything but a bucolic idyll. The author tells it like it is: a world where sex, struggle, and starvation prevail and just about everything is out to eat everything else.

Straightforwardly written in an almost documentary style, this fiction is without anthropomorphism. The needs, drives, and motivations of the animal (and human) characters are made dramatically clear to the reader based on the author's own insightful observations.

A well-written tale that will charm, shock, and delight its reader. ( )

Ich mochte dieses Buch sehr, das vom Leben einer Braunelle (ein kleiner Vogel) erzählt. Es zeigt sehr gut auf, wie viele Zufälle dazu beitragen, dass Leben so verläuft und nicht anders und wie vernetzt alles ist. Das ist ein schönes Buch, das Tiere nicht vermenschlicht, sondern einfach von ihrem Leben berichtet. ( )

One year in the life of a hedge sparrow! I love this book! I must have recommended it a 100 times to friends and strangers alike and, when I heard from them again, they were all as taken with it as I was. The author certainly has great imagination, but what is more, he has amazing observation skills. Great story! ( )