Kids into books - Harriet's Hare

This weeks title: Harriet's Hare

Author: Dick King-Smith

Publisher: Corg/Random, $12.95

Illustrator: Valerie Littlewood

Age group: 7-9 years


'But,' said Harriet, 'I thought that aliens were ... well, little green men with four arms and eyes on stalks.'

'Not far wrong,' said the hare.

'But you see, Harriet, we Partians have the ability to change. Imagine how strange your modern world here would seem to a caveman. Whatever would he make of microsurgery and satellite television and supersonic flight? You have to understand that on Pars we are as far ahead of you people on Earth as you are now ahead of the cavemen. One of the things we can do, for example, is to speak all earthly languages. But perhaps to you our most astonishing skill is that we have perfected the ability to change our shapes. When my colleagues left me here in this cornfield, I could, for instance, have decided to become a tiger (thought that might have caused a bit of a stir in deepest Wiltshire) or a dog or a sheep or anything else you like. But I chose to change myself into a hare.'