Down to Earth: Year of the Cornflake

by Faith Addis

This series follows Faith and Brian Addis as they work to keep open their holiday home "Phyllishayes" - a roomy farmhouse in Devon offering memorable holidays for children who may never have experienced the countryside in their lives. It ties in with the TV series starring Pauline Quirke.

Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography, Biography

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Andrea Westlake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed until I cried

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read this series.
Then tell me if I was wrong.
A comfort book where you walk away happy and smiling. Fabulous series. A British family moves from the city to the country and gets back to the land. They have all sorts of adventures and try all sorts of schemes to make ends meet from growing flowers commercially to taking in kids in a home run summer camp ect. Fantasic stories and all true too! I stumbled upon these books while living in London and loved the whole series. Then I mailed them home and my family loved them too. Hard to find in Canada, but worth tracking down.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in Devon and loved the TV series of down to earth i was handed Year of the Cornflake by a friend. After reading it i thought it was fantastic, i was laughing all the way through and it took me nearly a year to find the rest of the books in the series. I would highly recommend reading these books, all of them are brilliantly written and funny all the way through.

[Annie Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilariously written, I first listened to this on audiobook years ago and fell in love with the wit and antics within this book. A delightful read. Wish I could find the other books in the series.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read one of the later books by her several years ago and got this one at the time. But only just got round to it. I totally enjoyed it. I am always looking for this type of book - the city is left for the country, and there is always lots of humor and usually there are lots of animals. I guess it is an existence so totally different from mine, I find it intriguing. I am still amazed to be enjoying the genre so much. After a life-time of reading so much fiction, I am now often immersed in non-fiction. As to this particular book - a family leaves a flower shop business in London to live on a farm in Devon, where they gather petting zoo-type animals, and offer 'live-in summer camp on the farm' short holidays for children from age 6 or so to 11 or 12. No parents. So, it was quite an under-taking. Lots of fun stories and personalities and I found it hard to put down. When I finished it, I immediately ordered the other books and am about to read the next in the series. The BBC made television series of the books, but I have not yet had a chance to see any of them.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The books by Faith Addis are brilliant and it isn't a shame they were followed more closely when making the TV series. The rest of the original titles in this series are well worth a read too. They tell of family life in Devon, on a budget, struggling with teenage kids and a whole new way of life. Even all these years on from their original publication they deserve a much wider audience.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this on tape as I did my daily walk and neighbors who saw me laughing so hard must have wondered why. Until I added this to Goodreads years later, I didn't realize there were others in the series, or that it had been on TV.

[Jo Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been after this series of books for ages ever since I saw the BBC series and it was worth the wait. Heartwarming and funny...looking forward to reading the next one now.

[Evelyn Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved all by this author, gentle escapism

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-crafted laugh-out-loud novel with interesting characters and a jaunty narrative.

[Lydia Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I watched the series and had to have the books. From the moment I started on the first few pages, I could not put it down. It's a 'I need to know what happens next' book.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this when I was younger, really liked it at the time.

[Jayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting
fantastic
a good read.