Sam Angus's first novel, Soldier Dog, a tale of courage, loyalty and love between boy and dog during the First World War, challenges the assumption that stories must be twisted and deviant to engage young minds. 'Children are exposed to so much today,' says Angus, whose brood of five is aged between 15 and six. 'By the age of about 12 there is nothing really that they haven't seen, or heard about on the news. They play brutal computer games, or show each other horrific things on their screens.' In contrast, Soldier Dog is a straightforward story that neither plays down nor glorifies the horrors of the trenches. 'The war is the backdrop of events against which the story is played out,' Angus says. 'It is the animals and the hero, Stanley, and their relationships, that the children care most about.'
Having won the North East Book Award (and been shortlisted for a number of others), Soldier Dog has been selected as one of 17 books to be distributed to schools this term by Booktrust as part of its Bookbuzz programme aimed at encouraging reading for pleasure. Angus's next book, A Horse Called Hero, a tale of evacuee siblings who find and keep an orphaned foal in the shadow of the Second World War, was published on Thursday.
By combining real historical events with the interplay between child and beast, Angus has hit on a formula that resonates with children from all backgrounds. 'All over the country, whether I am in Exmoor or east London, children fantasise about animals. They almost without exception want their own dog, or their own horse, and that longing is intense. They want to love something unconditionally, and be loved in return.' And although she is quick to stress that it is this intensity, not the historical events themselves, that drives her narrative, she has been careful to make the context as true to life as possible. 'I am not a historian. I am interested in relating the human details – such as what the milk tasted like in wartime London – not telling the epic tale, but I have been careful to get all of my facts straight, right down to the weather. When I speak in schools the ignorance is often astonishing, so if I can encourage children to read and learn about the war, then good.'
Unlike a certain monotonously violent spy series that my nine- and 10-year-old have been devouring all summer, Angus's novels provoke a more thoughtful response. I have kissed tear-stained cheeks goodnight at the drowning of a faithful horse in a peat bog, and had intense conversations about loyalty and courage. To them the scale of both wars is still too great to fathom, but the depth of feeling between a child and their pet is something to which they can relate. 'It is a privilege for a child to have an animal,' Angus adds, 'but they bring a lot of pain. My youngest son has just had his chickens killed by a fox. He is devastated.' No doubt he will learn something, too.
A Horse Called Hero, by Sam Angus (Macmillan) is available for £6.99 plus £1.35 p&p from Telegraph Books (0844-871 1514; books.telegraph.co.uk)
