Dick King-Smith

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-10-05

Dick King-Smith (1922-2011), born Ronald Gordon King-Smith in Bitton, Gloucestershire, was an English writer of children's books, best known for The Sheep-Pig (1983), the story of a piglet who becomes a sheep-pig, which won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, was filmed as Babe (1995) and has been translated into fifteen languages. He served in the Grenadier Guards in the Second World War, farmed in Gloucestershire for twenty years, then taught in a primary school before turning to writing in his fifties; his first book, The Fox Busters, appeared in 1978. He went on to write around 130 children's books, most of them what he called farmyard fantasy, animal stories often about his favourite animal, the pig, among them The Hodgeheg, The Queen's Nose, Harry's Mad, Martin's Mice, The Water Horse and the Sophie series, which sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide. He was appointed OBE in 2010 and died in 2011, aged eighty-eight, near the house where he was born.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Sheep-Pig (1983) · The Sheep-Pig Core Canon
• Ace: The Very Important Pig (1990) · The Sheep-Pig Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 2 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 won)

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