Michael Morpurgo

"Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo, (born Michael Andrew

Bridge; 5 October 1943) is an English book author, poet,
playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels
such as War Horse (1982). His work is noted for its "magical
storytelling", for recurring themes such as the triumph of an
outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and
for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or World War I.
Morpurgo became the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to
2005."

Morpurgo was born in 1943 as Michael Andrew Bridge; his biological father was actor Tony Van Bridge. His mother,
Kippe Cammaert (otherwise Catherine Noel Kippe, daughter of Émile Cammaert), who had been an actress, met, and
later in 1963 married Jack Morpurgo (subsequently professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds from
1969–82) while Van Bridge was away during World War II.

Morpurgo did not learn who his biological father was until he was 19 years old, while watching the 1962 film version
of Great Expectations, with his mother, in which Tony Van Bridge appeared.[citation needed]

Morpurgo attended schools in central London, Devon, Sussex and Kent;[citation needed] his unhappy experiences at boarding
school would inform his novel The Butterfly Lion. He attended the independent prep school Mount House in Devon until
he was 13. He then went to the King's School, an independent school in Canterbury, prior to studying at King's College
London and graduating with a third class degree before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He then joined
the teaching profession with a job in a primary school in Kent. He also, from 1968, briefly taught at St. Faith's School in
Cambridge.

Life and career"Life and career

From teaching to writing

Morpurgo's writing career was inspired by Ted Hughes' Poetry in the Making, Paul Gallico's The
Snow Goose and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.Hughes and another poet, Seán
Rafferty, were influential in his career, with Hughes becoming a friend, mentor and neighbour. 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."[citation
needed]
Farms for city children

Main article: Farms for City Children

Morpurgo married Clare, eldest daughter of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books. In 1976
Michael and Clare established the charity Farms for City Children, with the primary aim of providing
children from inner city areas with experience of the countryside. The programme involves the
children spending a week at a countryside farm, during which they take part in purposeful farmyard
work.About 85,000 children have taken part in the scheme since it was set up, and the charity now
has three farms in Devon, Gloucestershire and Wales.

Children's Laureate

Morpurgo and Hughes, then Poet Laureate, originated the idea of Children's Laureate role.
Morpurgo became the third person to fill the two-year position, from 2003 to 2005.

Adaptations

Gentle Giant was presented as an opera by composer Stephen McNeff and librettist Mike Kenny at
the Royal Opera House in 2006. Film versions have been made of Friend or Foe (1981), Private
Peaceful (2012) and Why the Whales Came (1989), the latter also being adapted to a stage play. My
Friend Walter (1988) 'Purple Penguins' (2000) and Out of the Ashes (2001) have been adapted for
television.

War Horse has been adapted as a radio broadcast and as a stage play, premiering at the National
Theatre, London, on 17 October 2007, with the horses played by life-sized horse puppets designed
and built by the Handspring Puppet Company. The show transferred to the West End on 28 March
2009, and on 15 March 2011, the show premiered on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.
War Horse was also adapted as a 2011 British film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife
Joanna Lumley. This was subsequently presented as a ballet by the National Youth Ballet of Great
Britain in August 2010.[citation needed]

Political views

In a January 2014 article, Morpurgo stated "as we begin to mark the centenary of the first world war,
we should honour those who died, most certainly, and gratefully too, but we should never glorify...
Come each November over the next four years, let the red poppy and the white poppy be worn
together to honour those who died, to keep our faith with them, to make of this world a place
where freedom and peace can reign together."In August 2014, Morpurgo was one of 200 public
figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-
up to September's referendum on that issue.Prior to the 2015 general election, he was one of
several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.In
2016, he condemned government plans to extend grammar schools as divisive and “quite deeply
stupid”.In the run-up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum,
Morpurgo expressed his support for the European Union in an interview with the BBC, and
reinforced this with a ten-minute BBC Radio 4 'Point of View' on 5 August 2018.

Honours and appointments

Morpurgo was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1999 Birthday
Honours for services to young people, was advanced to Officer of the Order of the British Empire
(OBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the
2018 New Year Honours for services to literature and charity.Morpurgo was awarded an honorary
doctorate at Bishop Grosseteste University on 17 July 2013. He was awarded a second honorary
degree by Newcastle University on 12 July 2017.

Morpurgo was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Devon on 10 April 2015. "Michael Morpurgo," The
Guardian (US). 22 July 2008, retrieved 17 April 2011.

"Penguin, Puffin and the Paperback Revolution". BBC Four. 2 September 2010; retrieved 17 April
2011

Charity Commission. Farms for City Children, registered charity no. 325120.

AdventureBox Books Interview on Farms for Children on YouTube

Farms for City Children webpage, farms4citychildren.co.uk; accessed 14 October 2015.

UK Children's Laureate, about the award

Lyall, Sarah. "Undaunted Author of ‘War Horse’ Reflects on Unlikely Hit". The New York Times. 11
April 2011; retrieved 17 April 2011.

"'War Horse' Opens In The West End 3/28/09" broadwayworld.com, 8 December 2008

Hetrick, Adam (20 December 2010). "Seth Numrich to Lead 'War Horse' on Broadway; 35-Member
Cast Announced". Playbill. Archived from the original on 23 February 2011. Retrieved 27 February
2011.

First world war centenary is a year to honour the dead but not to glorify The Guardian, 1 January
2014. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

"Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 7
August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.

Elgot, Jessica (24 April 2015). "Celebrities sign statement of support for Caroline Lucas – but not the
Greens". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 July 2015.

Grammar school plans are divisive and stupid, says Michael Morpurgo". Retrieved 16 September
2016.
 "Michael Morpurgo: 'History tells me what I need to know about Europe'". BBC News. 29 April 2016.
Retrieved 28 August 2017.

No. 55513". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1999. p. 20.

No. 58014". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2016. p. 12.

No. 62150". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 2017. p. N2.

Reception and impact

Reading Matters website calls Morpurgo's 1999 Kensuke's Kingdom "A quietly told story, but plenty of drama and
emotion."The Guardian describes Private Peaceful, his 2003 novel for older children, as a "humanising and humane
work".

Literary awards and prizes

Shortlisted

 1991 Carnegie Medal: Waiting for Anya

 1995 Carnegie Medal: Arthur, High King of Britain

 1996 Carnegie Medal: The Wreck of the Zanzibar

 2002 W. H. Smith Award for Children's Literature: Out of the Ashes

 2003 Blue Peter Book Award: The Book I Couldn't Put Down: Cool!

 2003 Carnegie Medal: Private Peaceful

 2004 Whitbread Children's Book Award: Private Peaceful

 2012 Bippo award for books

 2010 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German youth literature prize): Warten auf Anya (Waiting for Anya)

 2014 Costa Children's Book Award: Listen to the Moon

Awarded

 1993 Prix Sorcières (France): King of the Cloud Forests

 1995 Whitbread Children's Book Award: The Wreck of the Zanzibar

 1996 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Gold Award): The Butterfly Lion

 1999 Prix Sorcières (France): Wombat Goes Walkabout

 2000 Red House Children's Book Award: Kensuke's Kingdom

 2001 Prix Sorcières (France): Kensuke's Kingdom

 2002 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Bronze Award): The Last Wolf

 2004 Red House Children's Book Award: Private Peaceful

 2005 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award: Private Peaceful

 2005 Hampshire Book Award: Private Peaceful

 2008 California Young Reader Medal: Private Peaceful

 2011 Red House Children's Book Award: Shadow

 2017 Red House Children's Book Award: An Eagle in the Snow

 "Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo: book review". Retrieved 28 February 2013.

 Samuels, Diane (18 October 2003). "The lost generation". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2017.

 "Michael Morpurgo wins Children's Book Award for fourth time". BBC News. 11 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.

 California Young Reader Medal: 2008 Young Adult winner

Selected works
In 2009 Morpurgo donated the short story "Look At Me, I Need a Smile" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four
collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Morpurgo's story was published in the "Water" collection.

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Morpurgo, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 300+
works in 1,000+ publications in 25 languages and 55,000+ library holdings.

 It Never Rained: Five Stories (1974)

 Living Poets (compiler with Clifford Simmons) (1974)

 Long Way from Home (1975)

 Thatcher Jones (1975)

 The Story-Teller (compiler with Graham Barrett) (1976)

 Friend or Foe (1977)

 Do All You Dare (1978)

 What Shall We Do with It? (1978)

 All Around the Year (with Ted Hughes) (1979)

 Love at First Sight (1979)

 That's How (1979)