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
Do you have something to add to this post? Please leave a comment
Book of the Month
Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill
Some doors are better left closed . . . In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it’s been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever.
Latest interviews
Interviews plus question and answer sessions with authors, narrators and publishers.
Must-reads
The following reviews are of books that begin the very best fantasy series available.
Special Feature: Fantasy Book Review talks to the Book View Cafe
Book View Cafe is a cooperative site created by a group of writers - including internationally renowned authors Katharine Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre - who want to take advantage of the internet's possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. The Book View Cafe is a place where you can find free, original fiction plus the authors' best and out-of-print work for a fee. Fantasy Book Review spoke to Book View Cafe member, science fiction author and memoirist Chris Dolley in February 2010.
Special Feature: Understanding the author of Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll, the elusive author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, has been the subject of enduring fascination for the past hundred years. The destruction of many major documents about his personal life by his descendants has only magnified the mystery. Jenny Woolf's biography, published to coincide with the release of the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film, lays waste to the myths and suspicions that have obscured Carroll's reputation by placing him firmly in the context of his own time.
