The Great Farm Rescue by Helen Peters

The Great Farm Rescue by Helen Peters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I always associate Helen Peters with a librarian friend of mine who told me that Helen Peters was her daughter’s favourite author (librarian daughters, the wisest of the wise) and so when I received a review copy of The Great Farm Rescue, I was delighted. It’s the third in a series which began with The Secret Hen House Theatre and features a chaotic, lovely family and a farm full of adventure.

There’s shades of the Cassons here and of adventures on Mistletoe Farm because this is a family who love each other enormously and are just trying to live their true and honest lives but life just keeps throwing obstacles in their way. This time, they’re facing their greatest obstacle yet as their landlord wants to sell up and evict them. It’s time for Hannah and her siblings to fight for their home and somehow raise enough money for them to buy the farm and for everything to turn out okay in the end.

You will cry when the end comes because you have got a soul but also, you will enjoy getting there very much. Peters has a light, lovely touch and orientates you swiftly in the middle of this gorgeous family. And their chickens. And their sheep. And their desperate battle to save the home that they love (and that loves them, quite clearly).

This is a book about people but it’s also about place, and it’s one that doesn’t shy away from the world that they live in. We learn about animal care and the natural world and there’s a particular brilliant moment with a cow and a nostril (this will make no sense to you now and it’s a really small moment but it’s also an immense moment which kind of encapsulates everything).

I liked this. I liked it a lot. I liked how I suddenly had to read just one more chapter before doing anything else. I liked how I was trying to figure out how it would end. I liked how Peters wasn’t afraid to give the bad with the good. I liked how it was okay to hope and to lose hope and to hope again (hope, such an important thing, so often a taken-for-granted thing, I think I am fascinated by it). I liked how solid and well done it was and how honestly it was told.

Basically? The good stuff.

It’s out August 1st and the publishers made a donation to Farms for City Children for the promotional copies they sent out and honestly, that’s the sort of good practice I approve of entirely. My thanks to them for the review copy. It’s the good stuff through and through.

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