'As I have been given a large and magnificent diary for Christmas - seven by ten and nearly two inches thick - I intend to fill it in as long as my ardour lasts. Further than that I will not go. There are quite enough jobs that a schoolmistress just must do ...'

Luckily for her readers, Miss Read's ardour lasts all year, encompassing every aspect of Fairacre life. Whether embroiled unwillingly in her friend Amy's marital hiccups, discussing the changing world with Miss Clare or the modern problems of good local education and rural impoverishment with the schools inspector and the doctor, she remains balanced, humorous and wise - and never forgets either her most
important charge, the mixed bag of children in her school, or the joys of the changing seasons.

A Carleton Hobbs Award Winner, CAROLE BOYD has worked extensively in radio drama and features and is famously known as Lynda Snell in The Archers. In 1998 she won an APA Audio Award for The Land Girls and British Talkie Award for The God Of Small Things. In 2001 she won an SWPA - Spoken Word Publishers - Silver Award for Middlemarch. Carole has also read two Rebecca Shaw titles for Orion.