Animal stories for kids that are realistic but not sad?

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

Any ideas?
Ds2 is obsessed with animals and will read any level from picture books to adult if it engages him - his recent top reads have been The Penguin Lessons and Humphrey The Classroom Hamster, but since he's into nature generally I think he would enjoy something more to do with the life of the animal in the wild.

However, he is a bit wimpy about death, so Watership Down and Ring of Bright Water are definitely out.

Can anyone think of anything? Thanks!

My son also loved 'Blob' by David Walliams. It's quite short and was one of the £1 books for World Book Day. It's a humorous tale of an animal-loving boy with a funny face who befriends a blob fish and learns how to deal with bullies.

This set is quite good but out of stock with the book people.

Apologies, I just noticed that you were after realistic, rather than fantastic, stories. Most of my suggestions fail on realism and are heavily anthropomorphised.

We're reading The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop, by Clare Balding, at the moment. DD loves it. I found it a bit clunky to start with (deliberate contemporary youth culture references and obvious attempts to educate) but it's got much better as the story progresses. I check the ending and there aren't any real sad bits, a bit of bullying but the character deals with it well and it passes. It's probably more 'girly', quite horsey-rah, but I think boys would enjoy it too (disclaimer: I don't have any ds).

This is a beautiful picture book we found in the library about the life of dolphins- no sadness, beautiful illustrations and really informative. www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Dolphin-Nature-Storybooks-Nicola-Davies/1406321192?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Thanks to the person who suggested Akimbo. I've bought a copy for my son and, after reading a few pages, it looks ideal.

www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=Katherine+Blake&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Katherine+Blake&sort=relevancerank&tag=mumsnetforum-21 Hi The lonely little Rabbit by Katherine Blake is a nice read - it's not too long and has a lovely moral. Happy ending!

Hi Countess,

I'm on the lookout for young readers to get their views about an animal book I brought out last month. I guarantee no sad bits in this book. It's placed as 5-8 but that's more down to the restrictions placed by the hosting websites. It's suitable for 5-7 year olds as a read with an adult and for 7-9 year olds as independent readers. Link here: www.smashwords.com/books/view/718114

Let me know if you're interested and I can send you a freebie code. Would love to hear what your son thinks. :)

One Dog and his Boy by Eva Ibbotson is a lovely read. Also 101 Dalmations holds up very well, though Cruella De Ville is pretty scary!

Has anyone mentioned Willard Price? His "Adventure" series is fab. They are a little old fashioned now, but all the facts about the animals are correct, and included in the story so the reader learns without realising iyswim. The first one is called "Amazon Adventure" and there are 13 in total.

I liked the Silver Brumby too, and the Blinky Bill series about a koala but not sure if they are too young? My Aussie cousin used to send me them.