Here Comes Tod

by Philippa Pearce

Six episodes feature a lively boy named Tod and his adventures within his affectionate family circle.

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 1993

About the author

Philippa Pearce was an acclaimed English author of children’s literature, best remembered for her classic time-slip novel Tom’s Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal and remains a staple of British children’s fiction. Raised in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in the Mill House by the River Cam, Pearce drew lifelong inspiration from her rural upbringing. Educated at the Perse School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, she studied English and History before working as a civil servant and later producing schools’ radio programmes for the BBC.
Her debut, Minnow on the Say (1955), inspired by local landscapes and a childhood canoe trip, was a Carnegie runner-up and later adapted for television. Tom’s Midnight Garden, also rooted in her childhood environment, became her most celebrated work, inspiring multiple adaptations for stage, screen, and television. Pearce went on to publish over thirty books, including A Dog So Small, The Squirrel Wife, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, and The Way to Sattin Shore, with several earning further Carnegie commendations.
Married briefly to Martin Christie, with whom she had a daughter, Pearce returned to Great Shelford in 1973, where she lived until her death in 2006. Her legacy continues through the annual Philippa Pearce Lecture, celebrating excellence in children’s literature.

Reviews

[Mathew]

The second chapter book that I read with my eldest (4). This is just a lovely collection of short stories around Tod, who must be around foundation age. Each of the six stories is told well and Pearce manages to somehow deliver moments in a child's life which would both be important and interesting to them. Her ability to perceive moments from a child's point of view is a real gift and my son was laughing out loud at many of the incidents. Pearce's language is just right too - enough vocabulary there to prove accessible to the very young reader (when being read to) with some new words to promote discussion should you need to. My son and I always closed each chapter with a giggle about Tod's understanding of the world. Lovely accompanying illustrations by Adriano Gon.