Out of the Ashes by Micheal Morpurgo tells the story of a young girl living on a Devon farm in the midst of a foot-and-mouth epidemic. Written at a time when foot-and-mouth was very much in the news, as farmers across the UK fell victim to an outbreak that was to leave potent images of blazing carcasses deeply embedded in many minds, Morpurgo cleverly manages to avoid a feeling of haste in his writing (although the book was actually written very quickly, and as a reaction to Morpurgo"s own experiences as co-founder of Farms For City Children), by giving the reader a thorough and poignant insight into what it is really like for farmers waiting to find out if they are about to lose their livelihoods. Worthy? Certainly. But this powerful and moving fictional account of true events does exactly what it sets out to do: inform, entertain and ask important questions. (Ages 8 and over) --Susan Harrison