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Michael Morpurgo’s latest epic and the importance of telling a good story
Michael Morpurgo, the celebrated children’s author and former Children’s Laureate recently commented on how important it is that teachers can tell a good story.
In an interview with Paul Clements of The Times Morpurgo, a primary school teacher himself 30 years ago, said “When I became a teacher, I quickly learnt that it’s really, really difficult to get a room of 30 or 35 children listening to you. I thought I was quite good at teaching, but there would always be three or four faces looking out of the window. The only time I had all their heads pointing one way was when I was reading a great story.”
He went on to say that much can be learnt from other countries; “To be a teacher in Finland is something seriously important in society, like being a doctor or a lawyer. “
“But the trick is to train teachers first: inculcate them with enthusiasm before they ever walk into a classroom.”
In the same interview Morpurgo himself admits; “I was never a great reader, but there were two stories I loved best: Kipling’s The Elephant’s Child and The Jungle Book. Deep down, I’ve always wanted to write a book about a wild child and an elephant.”
“With reading, I was very lucky. I had a mother who read to me, not because she had time – she was a busy woman – but she found 10 minutes to come and sit on my bed with a book.”
To read the interview in its entirety, please visit The Times online website.
Today sees the publication of the author’s latest book, Running Wild. After the Asian tsunami of 2004, he came across a newspaper snippet which acted as the inspiration for the book; “It was about a boy in Sri Lanka – or perhaps it was Indonesia – who had been doing the equivalent of a donkey ride with an elephant on the beach. The elephant sensed that the wave was coming and, with the boy still on his back, charged up into the jungle. It saved his life.”
Running Wild is a heart-rending jungle adventure. When 10-year-old Will’s father dies in the Iraq war, his mother surprises him with a trip to Indonesia. But little could she have known what awaited them both there. The first Will knows that anything is wrong is when Oona, the elephant he is riding along the beach, begins to spook. Then, suddenly, she takes off into the jungle with Will on her back. And that’s when Will sees the wave come crashing in! With his mother almost certainly drowned, with nothing to cling onto but an elephant and nothing to help him but the clothes on his back, Will faces a terrifying future. But maybe the jungle , and Oona the elephant, can help him!
Born in 1943 Michael Morpurgo describes himself as ‘oldish’. Married to Clare, father to three children and grandfather to six he has written over 100 titles for children over the course of his career. Honoured with an MBE in 1999 then Children’s Laureate from 2003-2005 and recipient of an OBE in 2006, Morpurgo is also a patron of countless charities, and in 1976 began, with his wife, the Farms For City Children charity which aims to relieve the experience of poverty in inner cities and urban areas by giving children the opportunity to live and work on a real farm for a week. He has received critical acclaim for many of his books, nationally and internationally and counts Ted Hughes, Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson as his favourite authors.
Posted: September 3rd, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: Michael Morpurgo
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