The Siege of White Deer Park is the fifth book of The Animals of Farthing Wood

The Animals of Farthing Wood (book series)

The Animals of Farthing Wood is a series of eight books written by British author Colin Dann. The books tell the story of a group of woodland animals whose home has been paved over by developers. They learn of a nature reserve, White Deer Park, where they will be safe, and undertake to make the...

 series. It was first published in 1985 and has since been included in a single book with In the Path of the Storm

In the Path of the Storm

In the Path of the Storm is the sixth book of The Animals of Farthing Wood series. It was first published in 1989 and has since been included in a single book with The Siege of White Deer Park and Battle for the Park in the "Second Omnibus" edition .-Plot summary:The death of the Great Stag, leader...

and Battle for the Park

Battle for the Park

Battle for the Park is the seventh book of The Animals of Farthing Wood series. It was first published in 1992 and has since been included with The Siege of White Deer Park and In the Path of the Storm in the "Second Omnibus" edition .-Plot summary:The inhabitants of White Deer Park face a new...

in the "Second Omnibus" edition (Hutchinson, 1995).

Plot summary

The animals of White Deer Park face their greatest danger yet as a silent and deadly predator (basically a 'big cat') begins to terrorise the inhabitants of the park, leaving them all fearing for their lives.
Some of the Original Farthing animals have died of old age (like Hare) while others (like Kestrel) have moved away from Farthing land to hunt without the risk of killing their friends.

Reception

This proved to be the poorest received of all the Farthing Wood series, as it is only resolved in the end by a deus ex machina

Deus ex machina

A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...

 - unlike the other books where the animals work together to overcome their problems.

TV series

The main plot of this book is not covered in the television series, possibly because the high level of horror and peril was seen as unsuitable for a children's TV series. However, the sub-plot featuring Badger mistaking Mossy for his dead father Mole was included in the second season, while Adder meeting Sinuous was included in the third season.

See also