IT’S MICHAEL MORPURGO MONTH!
Welcome
to the Children’s section of Te Takere’s Library blog, which is expanding to
include the wonderful selection of fiction available for the children of the
Horowhenua. There are so many cool
titles for kids here thanks to our great buyer librarians that they definitely
deserve their very own section: just as
adults can access fiction choices on this blog, now, thanks to JD’s website
expertise, children will also have the same ability to pick and choose.
First
up as a five-star recommendation is ‘The
Elephant in the Garden’by British children’s author Michael Morpurgo. He needs no introduction; his stories have delighted, enthralled and
moved kids of all ages, and he is always careful to get his facts right – his
writing is always objective and his research impeccable. Many of his books are set in times of war,
written without specific blame for one side or the other; rather, their stories demonstrate the
futility and heartbreak of conflict and its terrible consequences – but they
always have happy and hopeful endings, for no child should finish a book and
feel sad.
The
following books reviewed are most suitable for ages 10 years and up. (And really keen and clever eight year-olds!)
An
Elephant in the Garden, by Michael Morpurgo.
Karl’s
mum is a nurse who works in a Rest Home.
She enjoys her work; even though
a lot of her patients are very old and nearing the end of their lives, they are
all still interesting and unique people who deserve her care and respect. Such a person is Elizabeth, who is 82 years
old and swears that when she was sixteen, an elephant lived in her garden!
Karl’s
mum rolls her eyes at this; it is a
favourite chant of Elizabeth’s and the old lady wants to tell Karl all about it
– she has taken a great fancy to him, for sometimes he has to come to the rest
home when mum works in the school holidays, and he likes to sit with her. She says he reminds her of her little brother
Karli, and Karl is very flattered, and even more so when he and his mum when
her shift has ended, finally have the time to sit next to Elizabeth’s bed and
hear her wonderful, terrible, unbelievable story: an elephant really did stay in Elizabeth’s
garden, an elephant called Marlene.
It
is February of 1945. In the city of
Dresden in Germany people are feeling lucky but scared: so far the British bombers have left their
city alone but the people know that this enchanted time cannot last; the war is coming to an end and Germany is on
its knees – the Russians are approaching from the East and the Americans are
moving in from the West. Everyone is
making plans to flee, including Elizabeth’s mother, who works at the local
Zoo. Elizabeth’s Papa is a prisoner of
war in Russia, and her Mutti hopes to find shelter at her sister’s farm in the
country outside Dresden if bombs start to fall.
Mutti hopes also to rescue her very favourite animal from the Zoo, a
young 4-year-old elephant named for sultry movie star Marlene Dietrich; Mutti was there at her birth and can’t bear the
thought that she will be shot along with all the other zoo animals if the
bombers come. Well, Marlene can come
along with Mutti, Elizabeth and Karli, so there! Mutti has lost so much already; she’s not leaving Marlene behind if they have
to become refugees. The decision is
made.
And
it happens more quickly and brutally than they can imagine; the bombers do come, turning the beautiful
city into a fireball; tens of thousands
of people die and the bombing of Dresden becomes known as one of the Second
World War’s worst atrocities – but miraculously, Elizabeth, Mutti, Karli and
Marlene escape the horror and eventually join the miles of refugees leaving the
ruins of their lives, homes and dreams behind.
On
their long, hazardous trip to safety they meet many people, some dangerous and
some so kind and generous that they put their own lives at risk to help each
other, but all of them fascinated and cheered by refugee Marlene, the last
creature anyone would expect to see on their exhausting life-and-death
march: Marlene is a beacon for hope and
happiness in a blighted world, a talisman to prove that people’s luck can
always change for the better, and who better to write of this than Michael
Morpurgo. FIVE STARS.
Shadow,
by Michael Morpurgo Junior
Fiction
This is the third book I have read by Mr Morpurgo and
he impresses me as much as ever: in each
book is a lesson for children, couched
lovingly in an adventure which is always based on fact - both the lesson and fact being that war
anywhere in the world is The Great Destroyer, a vain conflict that decimates
populations and ruins countries, and wars fought in the name of religion are
the worst of all, for religious fanatics are always absolute in their belief
that their cause is just, righteous – and the only way to live. Everyone must follow the Way, or die.
Aman and his mother are living in a cave in
Afghanistan. They have been driven from
their home by the Taliban who murdered Aman’s father for not being properly
respectful, and they lead a hand-to-mouth existence. When a shivering, wounded,
filthy little dog arrives at the mouth of their cave one night Aman’s mother
tries to drive it away – they don’t have enough food for themselves, let alone
a mangy animal!
But the dog won’t
leave. She stays just out of the range
of missiles lobbed at her and gradually Aman comes to admire her determination
to be friends. He sneaks food to her,
bathes her wounds and a true friendship is formed, and it is the dog Aman names Shadow who eventually leads them
away from the danger of the Taliban, and after a series of frightening
adventures, to the safety of a British Army base hundreds of miles from where
they started – for Shadow is really Polly, a very special dog indeed, trained
to sniff out IED’s – Improvised Explosive Devices – and the troops,
particularly her owner Sergeant Brodie are overjoyed to see her again: she went missing after a skirmish and they
thought she had died – it is truly miraculous that she has found her way back
to the base, bringing two refugees with her.
There are many facets to
this lovely story, not least being the plight of refugees, not only in their
own country, but the uncertainties they face of a new existence in their
country of choice, in this case Britain, for Aman’s mother has a brother to
sponsor them on their arrival. Aman
attends school for six years, making many friends before he and his mother are
finally refused residential status, then sent to a detention camp before
deportation to Afghanistan. Mr Morpurgo
pulls no punches: he writes baldly of the lack of humane treatment for refugees
caught in the limbo of red tape and disinterest at immigration removal
centres; once again this fact is
shamefully stranger than fiction but fortunately for young readers (and me!) Aman’s
story ends happily. Friends old and new
rally to help him, including Shadow, and once again Mr Morpurgo has written a
heartwarming story for us all to
enjoy. FIVE STARS.
Little
Manfred, by Michael Morpurgo Children’s
fiction
It is 1966.
England has just won the World Soccer Cup, defeating Germany 4-2; the country is ecstatic! On their Suffolk farm, Charley and her mother
cannot understand what the fuss is about;
neither of them share Dad and Alex’s worshipful enthusiasm of the
Beautiful Game and really couldn’t care less WHO won. Needless to say little brother Alex thinks
his sister is just being a big GIRL. She
doesn’t know what’s good. Instead,
Charley and her mum would rather that Dad would do as he said he would, and fix
mum’s old childhood toy, a small wooden Dachsund called Little Manfred, which
he stood on and broke – and always said he’d repair but never did. For some reason that she never reveals,
Little Manfred is very important to mum, and she is very upset that her old toy
is missing a wheel.
It is not until the children visit the beach not far
from their farm that many little mysteries are solved: they meet two elderly men, an Englishman and
a German, sightseers who have returned so that one of them can see once more
where he was a prisoner of war, working on the very farm that Charley and
Alex’s mum lived with her parents twenty years before, and where she still
lives with her husband and family.
Walter, the German, was rescued by Marty, the
Englishman when his ship, the mighty battleship ‘Bismarck’ was sunk by the
British navy in a huge sea battle;
Marty’s ship, HMS ‘Dorsetshire’ picked up some of the survivors from the
water but nearly 2000 men drowned, abandoned to their fate because there were
rumours that U-Boats with torpedoes were in the area.
Walter’s best friend Manfred and he formed a bond
with Marty, who showed them kindness in many ways , but the steadfast
friendship of Manfred and Walter sustained them throughout their imprisonment,
and the kindness shown to them by the farming family they were sent to made
their lives more bearable; in fact
Manfred became so close to their little girl that he made her a wooden toy, a
Dachsund, so that she could remember them when they returned to Germany.
Twenty years later, the toy is still with her, broken
but not discarded, a symbol of love, friendship and understanding that
transcended fear and hatred in the midst of war.
What a lovely story this is, simply told but full of
wisdom and life lessons that we could all live by, young and old alike. Little Manfred was truly the gift that kept
on giving. FIVE STARS.
Children’s
author Michael Morpurgo is one of the most prolific and gifted storytellers in
print. He writes on a multitude of
different subjects, and for children of all ages. (Including me!)
‘WarHorse’, his classic tale of the First World War,
was published in 1982 and subsequently dramatized on the stage and in a fine
movie directed by Stephen Spielberg.
The story of Joey, a rich red bay with four white
socks and a white ‘cross’ on his forehead is told by Joey himself, three parts
thoroughbred and one part farmhorse, from the time he is bought by Farmer
Endicott in a drunken bid to spite someone he hated, to the time he is sold as
a cavalry horse to an army captain in 1914, because the farmer needed the money
- ‘ a man’s got to live’- despite the fact that his son Albert loved Joey and
had trained him to pull a plough and earn his keep: Endicott’s betrayal is so underhand and
shocking that Albert vows to join the army as soon as he is old enough so that
he can find Joey and bring him back to England and the safety of his former
life. It is a promise he keeps, joining
the Veterinary force at age 17, still in time to witness first-hand the bloodbath
on the battlefields of Northern France:
boys become men overnight – and horses share strange allegiances and
frightening adventures, as Joey relates with vigour and poignancy.
This
is a wonderful story – beautiful and terrible, an object lesson for all in the
brutality and futility of war and how it deprived millions on both sides of
everything they held dear, in the end accomplishing very little. How fortunate, though, that we have writers
of the calibre of Mr Morpurgo who are unafraid to write of such things for
children, for children are our future, and should know of the terrible mistakes
their forbears made. FIVE STARS
The
Fox and the Ghost King by Michael Morpurgo
BUT! The fans have
noticed that (strange as it may be) every now and then, a family of REAL foxes
turn up at the football ground to watch the game. (WHAAAAAT?!)
And every time they do, Leicester city wins. It’s true, the team’s real live
fox mascots seem to bring them luck – why, if those little critters keep
turning up enough times, Leicester City might even get to the final!
And
according to one of the little fox cubs who tells the story (which he must have
repeated to Michael Morpurgo), him, his brother and his dad were out fossicking
for really good things to eat one night after being to the football
grounds; they trekked home through a big
carpark that was being excavated by archaeologists looking for Medieval remains,
and all those heaps of soil proved irresistible – full of bugs, worms and other
creepy crawlies that round off a meal of pizza and pie crusts and chips from
the big game very well: what a good time
they were having – until a ghostly voice interrupted their fun and commanded
them to dig deeper so that his
ghostly remains might be discovered.
Well.
Dad fox was not
intimidated by the voice, even though the voice announced in booming tones that
he was a King and expected instant obedience:
the voice wanted something, and while Dad fox was happy to help, he
wasn’t going to work for nothing. The
King, who announced he was Richard the Third, wanted his remains to be
discovered so that his spirit could finally rest in peace; if the foxes could dig down far enough, the
archaeologists would dig down too and eventually find him. Dad fox and the two cubs didn’t mind obliging
(the kids really liked digging!) but if the Ghost King was really who he said
he was and was really as powerful as he reckoned
he was , then surely he could arrange for Leicester City football team to get
into the Premier League final.
The
deal is struck: Dad and the kids start
digging a hole so deep that it would be impossible for any archaeologist worth
his spade to miss finding King Richard – and when the King is found, Leicester
gives him a State Funeral and a proud resting place in Leicester Abbey, much
more fitting than being buried under a car park! And the Ghost King keeps his part of the
bargain, too – Leicester City achieve the impossible and don’t just get into
the final: THEY WIN IT!
As
always, Mr Morpurgo has woven gold out of extraordinary events – he never fails
to enthrall. Go the Foxes! Suitable for really keen soccer fans aged eight and up. FOUR STARS
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