Stig of the Dump

A boy befriends a young caveman in this modern children’s classic of friendship and adventure. Barney isn’t supposed to go near the chalk pit. His grandmother and sister both told him the edge could give way and he could fall in—but what else is he supposed to do on a miserable gray day?

It’s not long before Barney falls into the pit and bumps his head. But where he lands is more than an old garbage dump: It’s a home. There’s a little hut built out of discarded junk, and more surprisingly, there’s a boy, about Barney’s age, inside. He speaks in grunts instead of English, wears a rabbit-skin loincloth, has shaggy black hair, and might be named something that sounds like “Stig.” Barney befriends him immediately. Together, Barney and Stig go on all sorts of adventures, building a chimney for Stig’s hut, joining a foxhunt, stopping robbers, and catching a leopard escaped from the circus! Barney and Stig’s escapades have been delighting children for more than fifty years, while addressing important topics such as bullying, recycling, and language barriers. This timeless classic is sure to captivate readers young and old with its wit, imagination, and sense of adventure.

Author Biography

Clive King (1924-2018) was born in Richmond, Surrey, and attended King’s School, Rochester; Downing College, Cambridge; and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. From 1943 to 1947, King served in the Royal Navy, voyaging to Iceland, the Russian Arctic, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, the East Indies, Malaysia, and Japan. Civilian postings as an officer of the British Council took him to Amsterdam, Belfast, Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, Dhaka, and Madras (now Chennai). Several of these locales provided material for his nineteen children’s stories, but his best-known book, Stig of the Dump, was written during an educational job in Rye in East Sussex. King married, divorced, and married again, and is survived by three children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.