Farming books for primary school library

[babybythesea]

Advice please!
I work in a small rural primary school and work hard to promote a love of reading.

One of our children (aged 9) asked if we could get the Jeremy Clarkson Diddly Squat books. I haven’t read them (not my scene!) but a quick google suggests absolutely not in a primary school.
So I’m wondering what alternatives there are. Most of our kids live on farms, this is a world they are comfortable in. We’ve got fiction like Dick King Smith but given the choice they would rather pick up tractor magazines.
A quick hunt suggest Matt Baker (A Year on the Farm) would be suitable.

Does anyone have any other ideas? Non-fiction ideally but anything would do! This is really not my area of interest but I don’t want him to think I didn’t listen, and he’s usually a child who tells me reading is boring and pointless so if he’s asking I want to encourage! We’ve got plenty of picture books for the younger ones. It’s the Y4/5/6 that we are struggling for.

Oh, it's by Michael Morpurgo, but one of his lesser known ones.

There's also a lovely treasury of the James Herriot stories adapted for children. It's more a book to be shared by a teacher reading aloud though.

Sorry, I see I need to work on my reading comprehension - you were asking for non fiction!

Dorling Kindersley published a book called Total Tractor that might go down well!

Thank you for all the responses.
I found some books on Vinted which included a Tom Pemberton book. Which would have been amazing had there not been swearing scattered through it! Tried Matt Barkers book - no swearing but more an autobiography than a farming book. We’ve also got some of the Yorkshire Shepherdess books to look at to check suitability before we let the kids loose on them. My reading has taken a new direction!!

We have ordered The Stock so thank you for that recommendation.
We’ve got lots of the stories recommended (Dick King Smith, Roald Dahl). But not the Michael
Morpurgo which I will look for - they know Michael Morpurgo as we do War Horse and they enjoy it so they might be persuaded to read another one by him.

Thank you again.

That was from a Gervase Phinn memoir.

We’re farmers and my boy (5) has a good book called look inside a farm (believe it is usborne?) and that seems pretty good. So often you can tell the author actually has no idea about farming and that’s so off putting for children who DO know all about farming! He also has a book called ‘Total Tractor’ which is packed full of trivia and facts.

Farmer Boy - Laura Ingalls Wilder
A semi-fictional account of her husband's life as a child (9yrs old) on a big farm in upstate NY: merino shearing, potato digging to save the crop and more.
I find Morpurgo books are emotionally wrenching, tragic - rather like The Red Pony - so depressing
Herriot books are a good shout - I read those when I was about 9yrs and loved them; totally put me off vet school though ...
Marguerite Henry books - fictionalised books about famous horses and types of horse.
King of the Wind - the Godolphin Arabian from which nearly all modern flat racing thoroughbreds are descended, including Man O War and Seabiscuit
White Stallion of Lipizza - about the Lipizzaner stallions in Vienna

The Dick Francis library is probably a little too old for them: fag smoking, champagne drinking, steeplechase jockey solves mysteries ...

There's a couple of non-fiction books we have which might go down well - Chickenology and Sheepology

Heather Amery wrote the Usborne Farmyard Tales, which would be suitable for the early years.

There was a series of books called Home Farm Twins, but again, they'd be likely to be dismissed as "girly" books. The James Herriot books are a good shout.

The Beautiful Goats/Cows/Sheep/Pigs/Horses are good. Storey's Guides and Haynes Manuals might be a nice addition.

I don't think that Emma Gray's One Girl and Her Dogs contains swearing, but some of the farm machinery books and magazines (The Young Stock, Farmers Weekly, Farmers Guardian, Profi, Country Smallholder, etc.) might go down well. Do you have an agricultural college in your county? It might be worth seeing if you can contact their library team to ask for more suggestions!

Our tiny rural primary school (largely made up of the children of farmers and vets) does a topic on farming every year, visits their nearest agricultural college, takes trips to agricultural shows and they have their own in the playground every year. Their Nativity also featured some live sheep (and five-year-old sons of a shepherd who protested that their dad didn't have to go to work with a tea-towel on his head, plus a few other crackers), chickens get taken in for Show and Tell, and so on. It keeps life entertaining!

Just wanted to say that you sound very caring and motivated