The Sheep-Pig

The Sheep-Pig is a book by Dick King-Smith. It was first published in 1983, by Victor Gollancz Ltd, with illustrations by Mary Rayner. It was published as a Puffin Book in 1985 with the ISBN 0140318399.

The Sheep-Pig is about Babe, a Large White pig who is informally adopted by a black and white border collie, Fly. It was later re-published as Babe: The Gallant Pig and was the basis of the movie Babe.

In his autobiography Chewing the Cud, Dick King-Smith writes of first seeing the film Babe It was soon plan to us that the adaptation from the book has been wonderfully well done. There were differences, of course - there always are when you change something from one medium to another. There were additional pieces of action, and quite an array of new characters - another dog, the cat, that marvellous duck - but the director had stuck pretty faithfully to the central theme of my original story: the tale of an orphaned piglet who is adopted by a farmer and by his sheep-dog. This little pig, by virtue of his intelligence and determination, by his courage, and especially through his realization that politeness pays, comes eventually to win the Grand Challenge Sheep-dog Trials.