Timothy and the Sleuthing Sheep

Categories: Staff Picks , Fiction

In the category of winsome, anthropomorphic nature fiction, Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg was last year's unexpected and delightful prize.  This little study, translated from the German, is narrated by a tortoise named Timothy, who lived, in fact, in a garden belonging Gilbert White, an 18th century British curate and naturalist.  White wrote The Natural History of Selborne, an enduringly popular work of scholarship, and recorded his observations of Timothy in his journals. 

Verlyn Klinkenborg slyly turns Timothy, the object of scientific inquiry, into a watchful chronicler of the Selborne environs and a commentator on the strange ways of its human population.  The action, if a turtle’s meander can be so characterized, occurs during a week of freedom that Timothy spends beyond the garden gate.  I recommended Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile as an irresistible little gem in 2006.

This year’s candidate, also from Germany, is Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann.  In the tiny Irish village of Glennkill, shepherd George Glenn, a man who was known to read aloud to his flock, is found murdered in his pasture—pinned to the ground by a spade. 

His distraught sheep, led by Miss Maple, the smartest wooly in Glennkill, are determined to identify the killer.  Their literary education has provided insight into human psychology.  Following a reconnaissance of the village and a subtle investigation of its inhabitants, the flock reenacts the crime to reveal the murderer.