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River Singers for OUP

03.05.12 | Charlotte Williams

Oxford University Press has signed a "major deal" for two children's books by a debut novelist about a family of water voles, likened to Watership Down.

Head of publishing at OUP Children's Books Liz Cross bought world rights for the two titles by Oxford zoologist, Tom Moorhouse, through Catherine Clarke at Felicity Bryan Associates. The first book, The River Singers, is about a family of water voles living by the Great River, until a new predator forces them to flee.

Cross said: "With extraordinary serendipity, the manuscript arrived on my desk on a lovely morning in early spring—the very day I had resolved to seek out a new Watership Down. So, I was always going to be predisposed to like it . . . but instead, I really fell in love with it.

"The River Singers has won the hearts of everyone here at OUP. It creates a world so real that the reader's absorption in and engagement with it never wavers for an instant."

 

• Charlotte Williams
• OUP
• Rights deal