Adventure Lit Their Star
Adventure Lit Their Star by Kenneth Allsop, published by Penguin in 1972, is a unique narrative that features a pair of little ringed plovers as its central figures. Set against the backdrop of post-World War II Britain, the story follows a young RAF pilot recovering from tuberculosis who teams up with two boys to protect these rare birds from an egg-collector. This edition spans 188 pages and is presented in English.
Readers will find a blend of adventure and nature writing, as Allsop vividly describes the environment where these birds thrive, particularly in areas that blur the lines between urban and rural landscapes. The narrative opens with a striking depiction of migrating birds, likening their flight to squadrons of aircraft returning from a mission. Through this imaginative lens, the book explores themes of conservation and camaraderie, making it a noteworthy addition to the literature and fiction genre.
Official synopsis Publisher
Not many novels have a bird – or in the case of Adventure Lit Their Star, a pair of birds – as their hero. Little ringed plovers are small, slender waders with a black face-mask and conspicuous yellow eye-ring. They colonised Britain either side of the second world war, but didn’t nest on some remote mountain or offshore island, or under the protection of a nature reserve. Instead, they chose what nature writer Kenneth Allsop memorably dubbed “the messy limbo that is neither town nor country.”
Allsop, a WW2 veteran, wrote Adventure Lit Their Star when he was a cub reporter in the late 1940s. The story revolves around a young RAF pilot recovering from TB. He joins forces with two young lads to foil the attentions of a dastardly egg-collector, who is intent on stealing the eggs of these very rare birds.
The opening chapter is a tour de force of nature writing, rarely matched before or since. Allsop traces the night-time flight made by hordes of migrating birds as they cross the Channel, on the last leg of their epic journey back to Britain from Africa. In a brilliant and original twist, he imagines them as squadrons of aeroplanes returning home from a nocturnal sortie.
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