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Morpurgo became the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005, [3] and he is also the current President of BookTrust, the UK's largest children's reading charity.The story is told largely in the voice of the grandfather and Michael Morpurgo has absolutely nailed the gentle, slow way of talking that many older country men have.

One of the many great things about this book is that Joey at different times spends time with French civilians and with the German and English armies so young readers get a sense of how the war was for these three groups of people.It was not until he was teaching in Kent that Morpurgo discovered his vocation in life, of which he later said "I could see there was magic in it for them, and realized there was magic in it for me. The Butterfly Lion (1996) draws on the author's own unhappy experiences at boarding school, and is the story of a young boy who rescues an orphaned lion club from the African bush. I always think it's the measure of a really wonderful children's book if adults enjoy it too and, for me, Michael Morpurgo's books pass this test with flying colours. It's an escape, a new start, a chance to put things behind them - things like the death of Will's father.

In 2016, he condemned government plans to extend grammar schools as divisive and "quite deeply stupid". A heart-lifting, heart-breaking story by Michael Morpurgo, the second-biggest children’s author in the UK. The boys are placed with Mr and Mrs Reynolds, a kind couple who live on a farm in the Devon countryside, and they quickly get used to their new life.The family later moved to Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex, where Morpurgo would live during the school holidays, [13] having been sent to boarding school in Sussex when he was seven years old.

Morpurgo often explores these issues in wartime settings: The Butterfly Lion (1996), War Horse (1982) and Private Peaceful (2003) are set in World War I, while Kensuke’s Kingdom and Billy the Kid are set in World War II. We work closely with publishers and authors to ensure that we offer the best books on the market for your child. Remember Sir Walter Raleigh, who laid his cloak in a puddle so that Queen Elizabeth I could walk across.It tells the story of Jo, a young boy who finds out that a reclusive widow who lives in his village and her son-in-law, Benjamin, are hiding Jewish children and helping to smuggle them away from the Nazis over the mountains near the village. Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife Joanna Lumley. A thrilling and moving novel about an extraordinary animal caught up in a very human war, for anyone who loved The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips or The Butterfly Lion…By the award-winning former Children’s Laureate and author of War Horse. A stunning edition of this modern classic of World War One, featuring an introduction by the author and insightful testimonies from soldiers. Passionate, beguiling and moving, this award-winning story is also an unflinching examination of the horrors of war and the injustice surrounding the execution of soldiers by firing squad, on the – often false – grounds of desertion or cowardice.