This is the fourth title in the series of books about a small, but very determined, six-year-old girl called Sophie, who loves animals and is going to be a lady farmer when she grows up. She already has a rabbit, a cat and a dog called Puddle, that Sophie has to train. With the forthcoming family holiday to the seaside, it is Sophie who has to get into training herself, to learn how to swim. Once on holiday we see how Sophie gets on in the water and on dry land, where she makes friends with a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig and a grey pony called Bumblebee, and meets up with an old enemy. Dick King-Smith is the former winner of "The Guardian" Children's Fiction Award. The three other Sophie books are "Sophie's Snail", "Sophie's Tom" and "Sophie Hits Six". His other titles include "Farmer Bungle Forgets", "H Prince", "The Whistling Piglet", "All Pigs are Beautiful" and "The Finger Eater". David Parkins has previously illustrated "No Problem", "Tick Tock", "Sophie's Tom" and "Sophie Hits Six". He is also the illustrator of the Billy Whizz comic strip for "The Beano".