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A cracking adventure story with orangutana in it |
Michael’s fantasy island for kids and grown-ups
Children’s writer Michael Morpurgo’s famous adventure tale hits the stage for its Christmas run, writes Tom Foot
By Michael Morpurgo Order this book
IT is perhaps not surprising to find one of our greatest children’s writers has shared his home with hundreds of farmyard animals and more than 50,000 primary school children.
Michael Morpurgo – author of children’s favourites tales including Butterfly Lion, the Sam’s Duck and the War Horse – lives on a farm in Devon with 500 pigs and 120 cows. Fifty thousand pupils have lived with him on his Farm for City Children, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this week.
The scheme, where pupils from inner-city schools are given a lesson in the bucolic way, earned the former Children’s Laureate and his wife Clare an OBE in the honours list this year.
But paradoxically Mr Morpurgo, 64, spent his much of his own childhood in the concrete jungle of Holloway, visiting his grandfather.
Since finishing an English degree at University College London (UCL) more than 40 years ago he has enjoyed a prolific writing career producing more than 100 books.
Regarded as a ‘lefty’ and a regular contributor to the Guardian, Morpurgo’s stories demand the attention of both children and adults blending enchantment and faraway lands with an alternative history that is “rarely taught” in schools.
His most popular story Kensuke’s Kingdom is about a boy who indulges in a fantasy adventure on a desert island where he is subtly educated by a sole compatriot on the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An adaptation of the “cracking adventure story with orangutans in it”, which won the Children’s Book Award in 2000 comes to UCL Bloomsbury Theatre this week for its Christmas run. He says: “I had to be careful not to repeat the stories of Treasure Island, Lord of the Flies or Robinson Crusoe. I had read a story about two 80-year-old Japanese soldiers who were discovered hiding out in the Philippines jungle. They did not know World War II was finished.
“But the real inspiration was a letter I got from a boy about eight years ago. He said he had read my Wreck of Zanzibar and preferred it to Harry Potter. He demanded I wrote a story about a boy that was, if it were at all possible, lost on a desert island.”
Children’s writers have since the advent of the Harry Potter phenomenon taken rank in modern-day celebrity.
Writers J K Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson are more than just night-time names – they are multi-millionaires. And their work has reached the four corners of the earth, translated into dozens of languages.
But it was Mr Morpurgo and his friend and neighbour, the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, who laid the foundations of the children’s writing empire after a “significant” conversation on the banks of the river Tamar dividing Cornwall and Devon.
While fishing for carp Morpurgo lamented how children’s writers were treated as “second-class citizens” in the literary world.
They decided set up the post of Children’s Laureate, an ambassadorial role, aiming to raise the public profile of children’s writing.
He says: “We founded the Children’s Laureate which is nothing like the Poet Laureate. You don’t have to write special poems on the Queen’s Birthday. The Children’s Laureate has two years to bang the drum for the cause. I think when you look at successes of recent years, it has worked.”
Morpurgo was made Children’s Laureate following Quentin Blake. It is currently the turn of Jacqueline Wilson to beat the drum.
Illustrators are as important as the writers when it comes to children’s books and Morpurgo was keen to praise the work of Michael Forman, his “most important illustrator”.
He says: “Michael helps me with my ideas and gives me suggestions. I’ll give you an example of how our relationship works. He is a big Chelsea fan and last year he invited me down to Stamford Bridge. He showed me a group of Chelsea Pensioners, sat in the directors’ box. He told me how they had been made life members after more than 50 years watching the team.
“But there is one Chelsea Pensioner – and you can spot him on Match of the Day sometimes, who refuses to sit with the rich boys. He wants to be with the fans and he sits, on his own in the Shed End. I wrote a story about him called Billy the Kid. The nice thing is that the England Captain John Terry said it was his favourite book.
“The singularly most important thing about my writing is empathy. If the children emphathise with the character they will inherit an understanding of his or her position. They will understand the prejudice the character feels and learn from it. They will get a taste of a significant history they will, for various reasons, not come across in schools.
“And the world will become a better place,” he adds as an after-thought, with a snigger.
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