History Creator / DickKingSmith

* CunningLikeAFox: Foxes are occasionally portrayed as cunning, with ''The Foxbusters'' as an example. But this is decidedly secondary to their main characteristic of being vile Nazi stand-ins. (Unlike many authors who write about foxes, Dick King-Smith was a farmer.)

** In ''Dodos are Forever'', after a family of rats are left on the dodos' island, they start to attack unhatched dodo eggs, even progressing to target newly-hatched chicks a few older adults. With only two chicks having safely hatched since the rats arrived, the parrot Frank helps his personal dodo friends salvage a lifeboat left over from the ship that brought him to the island so that they can get to another island, as there are too many rats for Frank and the dodos to kill them all.
** ''Noah's Brother'' ends with Noah's family all leaving the Ark while Yessah is away as they don't want to bother putting him with him any more. Despite being left alone, Yessah concludes that he isn't that bothered about being abandoned by his family, as he was always treated harshly by them and he will just enjoy being alive in this new world (particularly when his special dove companions rejoin him).

Another of his books was the basis of the film ''The Water Horse''. ''Harry's Mad'' was the basis for a live action TV series, as was ''The Queen's Nose'' (one of his few books ''not'' about animals) and ''The Foxbusters'' had [[WesternAnimation/TheFoxbusters an animated adaptation]].

* AppetiteEqualsHealth: In ''Harry's Mad'', Harry's mother gets worried about the health of one of their parrots, Fweddy, because he has suddenly lost his appetite. Turns out, ''she'' is about to lay an egg.

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: Fweddy from ''Harry's Mad''.

* PollyWantsAMicrophone:
** Madison the African Grey Parrot in ''Harry's Mad'', aided by having been 'raised' by a professor of linguistics before he was sent to England after his former master's death to live with the man's great-nephew; Madison even manages to teach another parrot, Fweddy, to have the same language abilities as himself.
** In ''Pretty Polly'', Abigail teaches her pet hen Polly how to talk in a manner similar to a parrot. In contrast to Madison, it is noted that Polly's responses to other statements are generally random and she only rarely says something that makes complete sense in context, such as being taught to always respond to "What's your name?" with "Pretty Polly".

** Madison the parrot from ''Harry's Mad'' was so called because he was his original (American) owner's fourth parrot. "Washington died in his sleep, Adams caught pneumonia and Jefferson tangled with the cat."

* UnexpectedInheritance: ''Harry's Mad'' opens with Harry Holdsworth receiving Madison the parrot from his recently-deceased great-uncle George, despite the fact that George lives in America and he and Harry have never met. George's will explains that he chose Harry to be the one to receive Madison as the bird is already forty years old and may live for another forty, and apparently isn't used to females, so Harry was the only male relative of a suitable age.

* YourTomcatIsPregnant:
** In ''Harry's Mad'', after Mad is bird-napped, Harry's family adopts another African grey parrot to replace him, which they name "Fweddy" due to its lisp. After Mad returns home successfully and gets to know the new parrot, an egg suddenly appears, and Fweddy shyly admits "Call me Fwedwika".
** In ''Sophie's Adventures'' Sophie adopts a stray cat, which she names 'Tom' and which promptly gives birth to four kittens. On ringing up her Great Aunt for new name suggestions, she's horrified to hear the suggestion of {{Tomboy}} ("That's worse than plain old Tom!") until she finds out what it really means. Later, the trope is inverted when she names three of the kittens Molly, Holly and Polly, but it turns out they are toms, and "Polly" gets renamed Ollie. [[note]]It's funny too, if you know that a female cat is called a molly. So "Tom" was a molly and "Molly" was a tom.[[/note]]

* YourTomcatIsPregnant:
** Fweddy the parrot in ''Harry's Mad''.
** Tom (later renamed Tomboy) the cat from the ''Sophie'' series.

* ReadingIsCool: This is the general theme of ''The School Mouse'', where reading isn't just cool, but also saves lives. Flora learns how to read from watching the children's lessons in the school she and her family live in, and thus is able to read the labels on the boxes of poison pellets used to exterminate the mice.

* UglyGuyHotWife: In ''Find the White Horse'', Lubber and Coleen appear to be the dog equivalent of this, as Coleen is an elegant red Irish setter while Lubber is a shaggy-haired brown-and-white mongrel dog of undefined breed.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: ''Find the White Horse'' features four animals coming together who are clearly isolated from their fellows; the cat was basically abandoned in the dog's home owned by his former owner's husband, one dog is a lazy individual who is nevertheless the only dog to ever be polite to the aforementioned cat and demonstrates surprising strength when provoked, they befriend a homing pigeon who has lost her sense of direction after an accident, and subsequently find another dog who has been abandoned by her owners because the humans couldn't handle having a pet.

* ToServeMan: In ''Dragon Boy'', the dragon Montague Bunsen-Burner initially affirmed that he enjoyed human flesh even if he was frustrated at having to eat knights who always came to bother him, but he and his family abandon this lifestyle after they essentially adopt John, the titular 'Dragon Boy', out of respect for everything he has done for them.

** ''Noah's Brother'' ends with Noah's family all leaving the Ark while Yessah is away as they don't want to bother putting him with him any more. Despite being left alone, Yessah concludes that he isn't that bothered about being abandoned by his family, as he was always treated harshly by them and he will just enjoy being alive in this new world.

* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: In ''Dodos are Forever'', after a family of rats are left on the dodos' island, they start to attack unhatched dodo eggs, even progressing to target newly-hatched chicks a few older adults. With only two chicks having safely hatched since the rats arrived, the parrot Frank helps his personal dodo friends salvage a lifeboat left over from the ship that brought him to the island so that they can get to another island, as there are too many rats for Frank and the dodos to kill them all.

** In ''Martin's Mice'', the titular Martin is a cat who befriends a mouse named Drusilla and keeps her and her children as pets, disliking the idea of eating mice as he finds them pretty. By contrast, Martin's mother has a very low opinion of him and his siblings call him a "wimp" and a "wally", each of whom have no problem eating mice. However, when Martin first meets his father Pug, Pug soon bonds with Martin as the only one of his children who looks like him, and while he doesn't share his son's distaste for eating mice, Pug gives Drusilla's children a password so that he won't eat any of them by accident.

** Felicity the duck is either this or IntergenerationalFriendship with Daggie Dogfoot the pig in ''Pigs Might Fly'', as she helps teach him how to swim.

* SignificantNameShift: In ''Literature/MartinsMice'', the baby mice call Martin "Uncle Marty" in the beginning, but when they grow older and start wanting to move out of the bathtub, they begin calling him "Mart" instead. This shows that they've lost most of the adoration they once held for him.

* DumbDodoBird: ''Dodos are Forever'' is about a family of dodos who are smart enough- with the aid of a marooned parrot- to see the writing on the wall and attempt to escape their impending extinction.

** ''Magnus Powermouse'' has a lesser version of this; Magnus is permitted to consider Roland the rabbit his uncle, although his parents are both alive, as Roland expresses a fondness for children and imagines himself to have nieces and nephews from his long-absent siblings.
** Felicity the duck is either this or IntergenerationalFriendship with Daggie Dogfoot the pig in ''Pigs Might Fly'' as she helps teach him how to swim.

* TheDogIsAnAlien: In ''Harriet's Hare'', the titular hare is an alien from the planet Pars who can shapeshift into apparently anything he wishes. He typically appears as a hare while on Earth, but he mentions that he could have chosen the form of a tiger if he wished, and he occasionally turns into birds such as a sparrow or a goldfinch so that he can visit his human friend Harriet in her room.

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: In ''Harriet's Hare'', 'Wiz' the hare is actually an alien who can assume other forms, choosing a hare as his main disguise while on Earth but also turning into a bird on a few occasions and suggesting that he could have become a tiger if he wanted.

* HaveAGayOldTime: It's certainly not his fault, but nowadays his name looks like a parody of a forum troll's handle.

** In ''Pretty Polly'', Abigail teaches her pet hen Polly how to talk in a manner similar to a parrot, although it is noted that Polly's responses to other statements are generally random and she only rarely says something that makes complete sense, such as being taught to always respond to "What's your name?" with "Pretty Polly".

* DisabilitySuperpower: Daggie Dogfoot in ''Pigs Might Fly'' has a plausible, pig-specific one; his malformed front feet have no hooves and rather resemble paws, enabling him to swim. Later, as the title suggests, he "flies" (he is actually being carried back to his farm underneath a helicopter, but by this point his legend is so great that the animals suppose he must be towing the machine).

* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Farmer Farmer in ''The Fox Busters''.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: ''Find the White Horse'' features four animals coming together who are clearly isolated from their fellows; the cat was basically abandoned in the dog's home owned by his former owner's husband, one dog is a lazy individual who is nevertheless the only dog to ever be polite to the aforementioned cat and demonstrates surprising strength when provoked, they befriend a homing pigeon who has lost her sense of direction after an accident, and subsequently find another dog who has been abandoned by her owners because they couldn't handle having a pet.

** ''The Cuckoo Child'', in which an ostrich is raised by a pair of geese (although for some time the ostrich was assumed by his parents to just be a strange goose, although the farm that owned them knew what had happened).

** Felicity the duck is either this or IntergenerationalFriendship with Daggie in ''Pigs Might Fly''.

** Madison the African Grey Parrot in ''Harry's Mad'', aided by having been 'raised' by a professor of linguistics before he was sent to America after his former master's death; Madison even manages to teach another parrot, Fweddy, to have the same language abilities as himself.

* RagtagBandOfMisfits: ''Find the White Horse'' features four animals coming together who are clearly isolated from their fellows; the cat was basically abandoned in the dog's home owned by his former owner's husband, one dog is a lazy individual who is nevertheless the only dog to ever be polite to the aforementioned cat and demonstrates surprising strength when provoked, they befriend a homing pigeon who has lost her sense of direction after an accident, and subsequently find another dog who has been abandoned by her owners because they couldn't handle having a pet.