Top ten wartime animal books

Megan Rix was born in London and lived in America, Singapore and New Zealand before marrying and moving to the East of England. Her new book is The Great Escape.

For the Guardian she named a top ten list of books about animal heroes of wars through the ages, including:

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo rightly deserves his place at the top of this list as he is undoubtedly our best-known writer of animal books set during wartime. I read War Horse for the first time in 2011 and initially thought I wouldn't be able to get past the first chapter, where Joey is treated cruelly as a frightened colt. But I did carry on, telling myself that the truth of what happens to animals is far more harrowing than anything we read, and I loved it. Morpurgo has written many stories about animals set during wartime. I'm now reading An Elephant in the Garden which is set in Dresden during the second world war and is about an elephant called Marlene who is saved from being put down at the zoo and goes on a journey with her new family. It's inspired by a lady from Belfast who really did have an elephant in her garden during the war.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue