Out of the Ashes

Michael Morpurgo's novels for children have made him one of the most popular and critically acclaimed writers of his generation. He is the winner of the Red House Children's Book Award, the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Nestle Smarties Book Prize and has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. His novel PRIVATE PEACEFUL, about two brothers serving in the First World War, featured on the shortlists of four major literary prizes. From 2003-2005 he was the third Children's Laureate. He set up the charity 'Farms for City Children', and for their pioneering work he and his wife were awarded the MBE in 1999.

This story is not a story at all. It all happened.

On New Year's Day Becky Morley begins to write her diary. By March, her world has changed for ever. Foot-and-mouth disease breaks out on a pig farm hundreds of miles from the Morleys' Devon home, but soon the nightmare is a few fields away. Local sheep are infected and every animal is destroyed. Will the Morleys' flock be next? Will their pedigree dairy herd, the sows with their piglets, and Little Josh, Becky's hand-reared lamb, survive? Or will they be slaughtered too?

The waiting and hoping is the most agonizing experience of Becky's life . . .