Michael Morpurgo, Author Philomel Books $14.95 (79p) ISBN 978-0-399-22672-4
A pitch-perfect delivery brightens this familiar-seeming tale about stories that come true. Visiting his relatives at their farm in Wales every summer, Michael looks forward to Gramps's storytelling, ``like a long, happy sigh at the end of each day.'
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Michael Morpurgo. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (144p) ISBN 978-1-250-10515-8
What if a British soldier had a chance to shoot Hitler on a WWI battlefield but opted to let him go instead? Morpurgo’s incisive historical novel draws inspiration from the life of Henry Tandey, the war’s most decorated British private, who...
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Michael Morpurgo. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-04204-0
Morpurgo (War Horse) returns to a WWI setting with an emotional tale of wreck and recovery. The year is 1915. The Scilly Isles, north of Cornwall, are somewhat sheltered from the fighting that rages on the continent, but not completely. Alfie...
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Michael Morpurgo. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (144p) ISBN 978-1-250-03980-4
Inspired by Walter Tull, the first black officer in the British army, War Horse author Morpurgo examines WWI from another angle with this novel narrated in the present day by a man named Michael as he looks back at his boyhood. As a nine-year-old in
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Michael Morpurgo. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-312-60659-6
Morpurgo (War Horse) fuses the devastation of war, anguish of the refugee experience, pain of losing loved ones, healing power of friendship, and redemptive influence of a dog's loyalty in this multifaceted novel, first published in 2010. The author
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Michael Morpurgo. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-312-59369-8
Inspired by a true story about an elephant rescued from a Belfast zoo during WWII, acclaimed British author Morpurgo (War Horse) pens a historical novel about a German family's struggle to survive as their country is torn apart. The story within a...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Philomel Books $16.99 (171p) ISBN 978-0-399-22735-6
Despite the title, this is no historical novel, and the eponymous 18th-century war does not enter into the fervid plot. The war here is of the type waged primarily in fiction: an all-out battle at a boys' school. An innocent mistake triggers a...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author . Scholastic $16.95 (176p) ISBN 978-0-439-38202-1
Whitbread winner Morpurgo (Waiting for Anya) tries his hand at high-seas action in this tale of a 12-year-old who washes up on a tiny island in the Pacific in 1988. When the brickworks that employs Mike's parents closes, Mike's father comes...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Viking Children's Books $14.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-670-84851-5
When, in the Ireland of 1847, ``a sudden blight . . . reduced the countryside to a pungent mass of black rot and left the people starving,'' an English dragoon helps Sean O'Brien, 13, and his 10-year-old sister, Annie, to leave their ravaged...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Scholastic $2.75 (0p) ISBN 978-0-590-42912-2
With the help of an eccentric ally, best friends Daniel and Gracie lift an island curse while saving a group of beached whales. Ages 8-12. (May)
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Viking Children's Books $12.95 (144p) ISBN 978-0-670-83022-0
In trouble at school and at home, Harry can do little to please his demanding stepfather; Harry's mother, preoccupied with her new baby, has no time to spare for her eldest son. Harry's world is lonely until he meets two circus performers: Signor...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author . Scholastic $16.95 (202p) ISBN 978-0-439-63648-3
Morpurgo's (Kensuke's Kingdom
) suspenseful, ultimately tragic novel opens as 18-year-old Tommo Peaceful stays up all night "to try to remember everything." The author plants clues as to the narrator's sense of urgency with a...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author , illus. by Quentin Blake. Candlewick $8.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-7636-3466-7
The truth is that once we weren't children anymore, we never did believe Grandpa's story, not really—as much as we might have wanted to.... We still loved listening to it, though. Christmas nights would never have been the same...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Viking Children's Books $14.99 (174p) ISBN 978-0-670-83735-9
Like the acclaimed Number the Stars , this well-plotted novel features a young Gentile hero battling the Germans in their war against the Jews. As it opens, Jo is guarding the sheep when his dog alerts him to a bear; Jo warns the villagers in his...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Scholastic Press $15.99 (140p) ISBN 978-0-439-79661-3
As he did with his WWI-era novel Private Peaceful, Morpurgo once again sets up a framing story for this tender novel about a family living through WWII in rural England. Shortly after Boowie's grandfather dies, his grandmother Lily takes a...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author Puffin Books $6.99 (176p) ISBN 978-0-14-038431-4
A French boy guards the dangerous secret that Jewish children are being hidden from Nazis in his village. ""This well-plotted novel,"" said PW, ""is both gripping and temperate."" Ages 10-14. (Jan.)
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Clare and Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Olivia Lomenech Gill. Candlewick/Templar, $29.99 (110p) ISBN 978-0-7636-6629-3
The pages of this expansive anthology from War Horse author Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare, are crowded with memoir, sketches, and countryside poetry. An introduction explains that Clare was allowed to wander wherever she liked as a child in a
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Gemma O’Callaghan. Candlewick, $16.99 (64p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7747-3
Master storyteller Morpurgo imagines the ordeal of one of WWII’s grievously burned soldiers, narrated in a remarkably authentic voice by the man’s grandson, Michael. Michael’s mother tells him never to stare at Grandpa when he visits (“He had three...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator , illus. by Michael Foreman. Collins $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-00-711064-3
In a disappointing effort, a distinguished British team turns out a plodding tale about a misunderstood, almost mute giant who saves the town and gets the girl. The cruel villagers call the giant the "Beastman of Ballyloch," even after he...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator , illus. by Michael Foreman. Candlewick $15.99 (66p) ISBN 978-0-7636-3552-7
A distinguished British pair brings on the violins for this sentimental story built atop the Holocaust. A young journalist is to interview world-famous but idiosyncratic violinist Paolo Levi, and all she knows is not to ask “the Mozart...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Michael Foreman. Scholastic Press, $14.99 (124p) ISBN 978-0-545-46006-4
First published in the U.K. in 1997, this novella, billed as a sequel to Morpurgo's War Horse, reads more like a tender epilogue. Albert, who joined the British Army during WWI at age 14 intent on finding his requisitioned horse, Joey, has long...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Michael Foreman. Harper, $16.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-06-200618-9
Former British children’s laureate Morpurgo (War Horse) offers a sweet, touching historical novel (published in the U.K. in 2008) that balances sentimentality with humor and action. The orphaned 14-year-old narrator, Johnny Trott, a put-upon bellhop
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P $22 (113p) ISBN 978-0-15-201315-8
Another Robin Hood retelling? Why not, if it's created by the distinguished team that crafted Arthur, High King of Britain? Why not, if Morpurgo succeeds, as he does, in bringing together the isolated episodes of the legend into a coherent story...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator Pavilion Books $16.99 (74p) ISBN 978-1-86205-192-8
Following their Robin of Sherwood and Arthur, High King of Britain, Morpurgo and Foreman turn their talents to historical fiction about the Maid of Orl ans. Morpurgo frames his chronicle of Joan of Arc within a contemporary story about Eloise, a 17-y
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator, Michael Morpurgo, As Told by Candlewick Press (MA) $18.99 (112p) ISBN 978-0-7636-2519-1
An award-winning duo teams up for Sir Gawain & the Green Knight. England's children's laureate Michael Morpurgo retells this classic medieval tale with illustrations by Michael Foreman. Morpurgo handles the text with care and gives young readers...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Christian Birmingham, Illustrator Candlewick Press (MA) $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7636-1168-2
Pencil sketches and naturalistic color art transport readers to the Australian outback in this affecting tale of a wombat who has lost his mother. As he searches for her, he encounters a variety of other creatures, from a kookaburra to a boy. Each...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Christian Birmingham, Illustrator Viking Children's Books $14.99 (96p) ISBN 978-0-670-87461-3
Winner of a Smarties Gold Medal, Morpurgo's (The Wreck of the Zanzibar) cozy, well-executed British novel may not survive the jump across the ocean--the climax depends on a casual reference likely to be lost on American readers. The story, about a...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Phyllis Fogelman, Editor, Christian Birmingham, Illustrator Dial Books $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8037-2543-0
Pooling their considerable talents once again, Morpurgo and Birmingham (previously teamed for Wombat Goes Walkabout) craft a superb picture book about a boy, a special swan and the sometimes cruel realities of nature. After a female swan arrives on...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Emma Chichester Clark. Candlewick, $16.99 (64p) ISBN 978-0-7636-4824-4
The team behind 2008’s Hansel and Gretel gives this dark fairy tale a Dickensian spin and a blatant social agenda, with a socially marginal but insightful boy narrator; a corrupt, fetid setting (the rats must be literally beaten off with sticks);...
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Francois Place, Illustrator Viking Children's Books $14.99 (80p) ISBN 978-0-670-86360-0
Morpurgo (The War of Jenkins' Ear) spins a tale as compelling as it is unusual in its setting and plot. The story unfolds in journal entries and watercolor illustrations made by 14-year-old Laura Perryman in 1907 and 1908. She tells of her life on...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by François Place. Candlewick, $15.99 (80p) ISBN 978-0-7636-4896-1
In a story first published in 2006, Morpurgo (War Horse) takes advantage of the ever-popular setting and culture of Provence. Ten-year-old Yannick is sent from Paris to his uncle’s inn in the south of France so his mother can convalesce. He promptly
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Michael Morpurgo, Author, Morpurgo, Author, Michael Foreman, Illustrator Harcourt Children's Books $23 (128p) ISBN 978-0-15-201736-1
Following their Robin of Sherwood and Arthur, High King of Britain, Morpurgo and Foreman turn their talents to historical fiction about the Maid of Orl ans. Morpurgo frames his chronicle of Joan of Arc within a contemporary story about Eloise, a 17-y
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Kerry Hyndman. Candlewick, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-0042-3
In this sophisticated story with a tangential holiday theme, understated text and art follow a Scandinavian robin on its annual Christmastime migration from its northern homeland to Britain. (An introductory note offers the scientific basis for the...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Emily Gravett. Two Hoots, $18.99 (36p) ISBN 978-1-5290-6331-8
Beginning with “a wake-up call,” animals share a conceit that builds to a heartening message of planetary care in this obliquely conceptual picture book. After a pale-skinned human narrator chats with a blackbird, the bird sings to a “fox half...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Emily Gravett. Two Hoots, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-03-501026-4
Princess Clara finds a small ogre in the palace garden near a pond, and because she’s terribly lonely—her mother has died, and her father is always gone—she takes him home and keeps him in her shoe. (Digitally finished colored pencil and watercolor...
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Michael Morpurgo, illus. by Benji Davies. Puffin Canada, $17.99 (112p) ISBN 978-0-7352-7180-7
Striking the tone of a fireside chat in this winning story of an enduring friendship, five-year-old narrator Allen Williams recalls the time he and his mother were rescued from a shipwreck near Cornwall’s Scilly Isles. During the event, the brave,...
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