Flamingo Boy by Michael Morpurgo

When Vincent Montague was young, he had two pictures in his bedroom. One he painted in his Primary art class after his teacher, Miss Weatherly had them "paint a story". Vincent painted an "old traveller sitting on the steps of his gypsy caravan, his piebald horse grazing the grass nearby" with a police car also in the painting. The inspiration for the painting was a story he had read in a book. The other painting was a picture by someone named "Vincent". It was of "four boats on a beach, with the sea and sky behind."

When he was older, Vincent discovered that the boat picture was painted by Vincent Van Gogh, "down by the sea, just a few miles from where he was living, in a town called Arles."  He learned about Van Gogh from a bookstall in town. This created in Vincent a desire to see the places Van Gogh had visited and painted. 

It was at this same time, while studying for his six form exams in his family's home in Watford, that Vincent discovered a note taped to the back of the Van Gogh picture. The note was from his grandparents, dated January 27, 1964. It told him that they visited "this beach in the Camargue region in the south of France, where Vincent Van Gogh had gone when he painted this picture."

Because of the boat painting and the note, Vincent decided to leave Watford after completing his exams and "follow the bend in the road". During the summer following exams, Vincent travelled to the Camargue in the south of France. While walking on "a causeway with pink lakes on both sides" with "flamingos nearby, strolling languidly through the shallows" Vincent became very ill and collapsed. He felt himself being carried and awoke to find himself in a small cottage. He meets Lorenzo, the tall man who found him and Kezia Charbonneau, who tells Vincent that she and Lorenzo are like brother and sister but are also best friends.

Vincent learns that Lorenzo Sully doesn't speak much, that he likes only those people who are kind and that he loves the flamingos which he watches over and cares for. Kezia tells Vincent that he is "on a farm far out in the marshes,... a few kilometres down the road, along the canal from a little town called Aigues-Mortes."  When Vincent enquires as to how Kezia came to speak English so well, she tells him that when he is sufficiently recovered she will tell him the story of how this came to be.

Gradually Vincent begins to recover, growing stronger from the rest, the delicious soups and crusty bread Kezia makes. Vincent also beings to understand Lorenzo more, how he speaks and his love of the flamingos. When he feels better, Vincent, in response to Kezia's questions, explains how he came to be wandering through the Camargue. This leads Kezia to begin to tell Vincent how she and Lorenzo, who was known as "Flamingo boy" when he was little, met and how their lives became forever entwined. It is a story of friendship, trust and of mutual understanding. 

Discussion

Award-winning British author, Michael Morpurgo was inspired to write Flamingo Boy because of his grandson's autism. A trip to the Camargue in the South of France was the inspiration for both the setting and the idea of an autistic boy who couldn't relate well to others, but understood the world of animals. Morpurgo then set his novel during the occupation of France by the Germans and wove into it the painting by Vincent Van Gogh.  It is the main character and narrator, Vincent Montague's love of the painting that sends him on his journey at the age of eighteen to visit the Camargue and ultimately changes the course of his life. The painting that Vincent most likely loves is Van Gogh's "Fishing boats on a beach at Les Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer."

Fishing boats on a beach at Les Saintes-de-la-Mer

Morpurgo employs two narrators, Vincent Montague who is narrating the story in the present about meeting Kezia and Lorenzo when he was eighteen years old in 1981, and Kezia Charbonneau who takes over the book's narration and relates the story of her youth during the 1940's in occupied France. Morpurgo uses Kezia's innocence of youth in her narrative to keep the horrors of the Holocaust and the discrimination of those who are different somewhat distant, almost impersonal, diminishing the emotional impact of the story. Kezia's mother warns her about the Germans in a general sort of way.

"The Germans, they don't like Roma people, Kezia. I mean, more than most people they don't like us...They hate Jewish people too...Jewish people, Roma people -- the German's, the Milice, they want to be rid of us...And they hate children like Lorenzo too...Because he is different, Kezia --the same reason they hate us, and the Jews, because we are different."  But the terror of the German occupation is diminished both by the isolation of the Sully farm and by the kindness of the local German Caporal. 

Morpurgo uses the character of Caporal Willi Brenner, a teacher from Tubingen, Germany to demonstrate that not all German soldiers were Nazis. Many like Brenner were sometimes forced to fight against their will for the Third Reich. Brenner tells them that he was sent to Russia to fight, an experience so traumatic it turned his hair white and resulted in him losing toes due to frostbite. Brenner helps Kezia's family rebuild their carousel by bringing them wood which is scarce. He also helps both Kezia and Lorenzo's families by warning them about the Milice and the Gestapo, by having his soldiers block the road to the Sully farm so as to protect Kezia's from being taken by the Milice.  Morpurgo often incorporates a sympathetic character in his novels to portray a more balanced approach, although the vast majority of German soldiers truly believed in what they were fighting for.

Flamingo Boy is classic Michael Morpurgo that most young readers, especially boys, will enjoy. Like most of Morpurgo's novels, the beautiful cover invites readers inside.Although Morpurgo delayed writing a novel that tackled the subject of autism because he felt he couldn't do it justice,  he's done a fine job here. Lorenzo is an endearing character whose unusual ways help both Kezia and Willi Brenner learn to trust. Morpurgo's descriptions of a boy for whom trust and loyalty are paramount and who loves the flamingos of the Camargue, provide readers with a better understanding how someone with autism encounters the world in a way that is refreshing.

image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Vissersboten_op_het_strand_van_Les_Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Book Details:

Flamingo Boy b Michael Morpurgo
London, England: HarperCollins Children's Books      2018
288 pp.

Half a Man by Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo's latest book is about a sailor who was in the merchant navy during World War II and who suffered a catastrophic injury that changed his life forever. The story is narrated by the grandson who is now in his fifties, remembering how his relationship with his wounded grandfather grows through the years.

As a young child, Michael had nightmares about a man with a twisted face who jumps out of a sinking ship that is on fire. The nightmares always happened before his grandfather's visits at Christmas.These visits were not frequent because his grandfather lived on the Isles of Scilly. Unlike other people, and against his parents warnings, Michael would look at his grandfather. Unlike others who were revolted by what they saw, Michael could see past his grandfather's scars.

"I was never revolted by what I saw. If I had been, I could have looked away easily. I think i was more fascinated that anything else, and horrified too, because I'd been told something of what happened to him in the war. I saw the suffering he had gone through in his deep-blue eyes -- eyes that hardly ever blinked, I noticed."

Although Michael asked his parents about how his grandpa was wounded, they were reluctant to tell him much about what happened or about his grandmother whom he never met. Michael began visiting his grandpa in the Scilly Isles when he was twelve. His grandpa's world was much different from busy, noisy London; he spent his time fishing and reading. As the years went by, in the quiet time spent together Michael forged a strong bond and a deep understanding with his grandpa that led to his learning the truth about what happened during the war and in the years afterwards.

Discussion

Half a Man is a touching story about a family in desperate need of healing and forgiveness. The story centers on the importance of how we "see" others and of accepting people as they are. The hurt in Michael's family began when his grandmother Annie, was unable to see past her husband's terrible wounds. Grandpa tells Michael that Annie came to see him in hospital but things were different. "Right away I saw she didn't look at me the same, didn't speak to me like I was normal, like the nurses did. She still loved me, I think, but all she saw was a monster man." When he returned home, grandpa found that Annie still would not look at him. This deeply hurt Michael's grandpa and Annie's inability to accept him for who he was after the war, led to deeper problems. This inability to see grandpa was passed onto Annie's daughter - Michael's mother and eventually to Michael's father. They mistakenly believe that looking at grandpa was rude and upsetting to him. The only person able to look was Michael. At first Michael's looks were secret glances. These furtive looks turned into longer stares at grandpa's face and his missing fingers. At first Michael was scared when he looked at his grandpa's face, but as he grew older, the fear disappeared and he came to recognize the suffering. This acceptance leads Michael's grandpa to open up to him about what really happened to him many years ago - something he has never told anyone. Like anyone else, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, grandpa wanted to be seen and accepted.

Michael's grandpa too struggled to accept what happened to him. He admitted to Michael that he drank too much and said things that he shouldn't have, leading Annie to leave him. He tells Michael, "I don't blame her, not anymore. No one wants a monster for a husband. No one wants half a man, and that's what I was, Michael, half a man. That's what I still am."

Therefore, Half a Man is also a story which explores the lasting impact war has on those directly involved and on their families - often into the generations that follow. Morpurgo's gentle story-telling conveys the sense of loss experienced by grandpa's family when he returns home so terribly wounded. As grandpa struggled to recover from his catastrophic wounds he discovered the one thing he desired most - his family, taken from him. His beloved wife, Annie, who could have been a source of comfort and healing, was unable to look at him. Their struggles to cope with the aftermath of the war led to Annie abandoning him, taking their little girl who was Michael's mother, with her. The result was a family completely broken: Michael's grandpa was consumed by hate and Michael's own mother grew up angry at her mother for taking her away from her dad.

It is left up to Michael to bring about his grandpa's wish for the family to reconcile - specifically his wife and daughter. This happens at grandpa's funeral.

Michael's grandpa mentions that it was Dr. McIndoe who put him back together in the hospital. "It was him that did it, put us back together, and I'm not talking about the operations. He was a magician in the operating room, all right. But it's what he did afterward for us. He made us feel right again inside, like we mattered, like we weren't monster men."

Dr. Archibald McIndoe was in fact a real person. At the time of World War II, there were only four plastic surgeons in Britain and Dr. McIndoe was one of those. Dr. McIndoe was stationed at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead (where Michael's grandpa was treated). There he founded the Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery to treat mainly RAF causalities of World War II. Dr. McIndoe developed new ways to treat the horrific burns suffered by RAF pilots and championed the rehabilitation and reintegration of these terribly disfigured men back into society.

In 1941 he formed the Guinea Pig Club which consisted mainly of recovering RAF patients. McIndoe believed that the disfigured airmen should be fully reintegrated into society at a time when many who saw these men in public were horrified and demanded they remain hidden.  McIndoe died young, at age 59 in 1960, but his legacy lives on in the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation which works to develop new ways to treat burns and soft tissue injuries. Morpurgo's Half a Man is dedicated to Eric Pearce, "one of the very last of McIndoe's 'Guinea Pigs.' "

You can read more about the amazing Sir Archibald McIndoe on the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation website.

Half a Man is a story simply told, beautifully illustrated by Gemma O'Callaghan's prints.

Book Details:

Half a Man by Michael Morpurgo
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press   2005
53 pp.

Listen To The Moon by Michael Morpurgo

Fourteen year old  Alfred (Alfie) Wheatcroft and his parents, Jim and Mary live in Veronica Farm on the island of Bryher, one of the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall. 

Although Alfie's mother,  Mary warned him to go to school, Alfie is there waiting when his father Jim arrives at his boat on Green Bay. The two spend time fishing for mackerel but when the fishing is poor, Alfie suggests they go in closer to St. Helen's an isolated island where an old quarantine house, Pest House, sits abandoned. Alfie's father is not keen to do this but allows Alfie to row them in near the sandy beach to try their luck. Both Alfie and his father hear what seems to be a child crying. Scared, they beach their boat and soon discover that they are hearing a child, crying and coughing and it is coming from the Pest House.

Alfie discovers a pale, sick child hiding in the fireplace of the ruined Pest House, shivering and wrapped in a blanket. Terrified, the young girl tries to run away but collapses. Alfie and his father put the girl in the boat and take her back to Green Bay. They are met by Mary and many others who live on the island. Mary orders someone to send for Dr. Crow on St. Mary's. 

The girl momentarily awakens and whispers "Lucy" leaving those around her to believe that she is named Lucy. Lucy is taken to the Wheatcroft home at Veronica Farm. Dr. Crow encourages Lucy to eat and drink as she is feverish and dehydrated.  Alfie's cousin, Dave Bishop visits after the doctor leaves and tells Jim and Mary Wheatcroft that he went over to St. Helen's and found a grey sodden blanket and a bedraggled teddy bear. The blanket has the name Wilhelm on it and immediately Cousin Dave jumps to the conclusion that Lucy is German and a "lousy Hun". Alfie's mother threatens Cousin Dave, telling him he is to tell no one about the name on the blanket. He reluctantly promises.

At first the Wheatcrofts believe that Lucy doesn't speak because she might be German and therefore cannot understand English. However Alfie believes that Lucy does understand but for some reason cannot speak. It is June 1915 and with no end to the war in sight, the islanders are growing more apprehensive especially as the papers are filled with "daily reports of ever mounting casualties, those dreadful long lists in the papers of the killed, the wounded and the missing in action." The Isles of Scilly have had the bodies of four drowned Royal Navy sailors washed ashore in recent months. Lucy Lost as she is now referred to, continues to live with Alfie's family while people speculate on who she was and how she came to be on St. Helen's.

All of the Wheatcrofts must deal with harassment from the islanders. Jim is teased about finding mermaids while Mary must fend off constant questions about Lucy when she visits her twin brother Billy. Mary goes every day to visit Uncle Billy as he is called. She rescued him from the County Asylum in Bodmin where he was located after going missing following the death of his wife and baby. Billy who doesn't speak or interact much with the islanders, lives in the boat house on Green Bay. Most of his time is spent restoring an old ship, the Hispaniola which he intends to sail some day. Alfie too is quizzed by the teachers at school and is taunted by Cousin Dave's son, Zebediah Bishop. Eventually Alfie has had enough and the two fight and are given detention from the mean-spirited headmaster, Mr. Beagley. During detention Alfie learns that Cousin Dave has broken his promise not to tell about the blanket with the German writing on it.

Despite Lucy's silence, Alfie enjoys her company. He spends time talking to her in the hopes that she will gradually begin to talk again. Lucy however seems unable to respond. Dr. Crow is concerned that Lucy has been deeply traumatized, leaving her unable to speak. He believes that if she does not recover they will have to send her to the mental hospital.  He insists that the Wheatcrofts attempt to get Lucy out of bed and to that end he brings his gramophone. 

The gramophone seems to draw Lucy's attention, so much so that she begins to play Dr. Crow's records constantly and is especially fond of Mozart's Andante Grazioso. Unfortunately this does not help her to talk. Lucy however gradually becomes more involved in life at the Wheatcrofts; she waits for Alfie to return from school and begins to accompany him in the morning when he opens up the henhouse. 

Soon she manages to attend school, at first reluctant to cross the Tresco Channel in a boat, taking Peg, "a whiskery old horse" that no one was able to ride, across. Even when threatened by the Headmaster "Beastly Beagley", Lucy doesn't speak. But when she sees the piano, and plays Mozart, Miss Nightingale, the piano teacher is stunned. 

When word gets out that Lucy Lost was found with a blanket with the name Wilhelm on it, people are certain Lucy must be "a lousy Hun". This leads the villagers to treat Alfie's family and Lucy with much cruelty. The Wheatcroft family are considered "Fritz lovers" and are shunned and ostracized. The islanders stop buying Jim's fish and Mary's eggs. The are shunned even at church. The situation reaches a crisis point when the Wheatcroft's door is painted with "Remember the Lusitania" and rocks are thrown through Lucy's bedroom window. 

Dr. Crow suggests that Alfie take Lucy back to St. Helen's and the Pest House in the hopes that this will help her remember and to speak. Against the advice of his mother, Alfie does this and it does seem to help as Lucy begins to speak a few words. But it is Uncle Billy and the Hispaniola and a second tragedy that finally leads Lucy to reveal her identity and what happened to her only a few months earlier.

Discussion

Listen to the Moon is set in the summer of 1915 on the Isles of Scilly off the Cornwall coast. What will someday be known as The Great War is only ten months along. Like most people back in 1914, the islanders believed the war would be over by Christmas of that year, but by May 1915, the number of dead is quickly mounting, with no end in sight. The Isles have casualties among their own and hatred of the Germans or anything German is high. One of those casualties is the sinking of the ocean liner, the Lusitania on May 7, 2015 by the German U-boat SM U-20 in the North Atlantic. 

The Lusitania was one of the largest ocean liners traveling the Atlantic in 1915. The ship was traveling from New York to Liverpool carrying 1959 passengers and around one hundred-seventy-three tons of ammunition when she was torpedoed. She sank in about eighteen minutes. Over one thousand people died in the sinking which happened off the Old Head of Kinsale. Prior to the voyage, the German embassy placed notices in American newspapers warning of the risk of ships being sunk in the waters around Britain. The sinking created an great deal of animosity towards Germany and the German people.

The novel offers a fictional story of Merry MacIntyre who along with her mother, was on her way to England to visit her soldier-father. Merry's father was originally from Toronto but like many of his generation decided to fight for his ancestral homeland, Britain, in the First World War. By the time the war began, Merry's father and mother lived in New York. With her father wounded and stationed at a hospital in England, Merry and her mother decided to travel there to visit him.  They book passage on the Lusitania which is torpedoed and sinks quickly. Merry and a younger girl, Celia are placed into a life boat.

When the life boat they are in is swamped, Merry manages to swim with Celia on her back to the floating grand piano from the ship. Celia dies and her body floats off the piano. Merry is rescued by U-boat 19 and a kindly sailor, Wilhelm gives her the blanket his mother made for him, with his name on it. The U-boat is not able to return to Germany with a child, so they set Merry ashore on the coast, not realizing that the island is deserted. Eventually, after several days, Merry is discovered by Alfie and his father. 

Morpurgo begins his story with the grandson of Merry MacIntyre who has pieced together the story of his grandma whom he describes as having come out of the sea and informs the reader that he has told it as dictated to him. It begins with Alfie and his family set in Scilly Isles in May, 1915. The narrator then switches to Merry in New York, March 1915 who provides the background to how she and her mother come to be on the Lusitania. The narrator alternates throughout the story, from Alfie in third person, to Dr. Crow in the form of his journal entries and first person narrative, to Mr. Beagley. After a short chapter by Merry's grandson, she concludes the novel with her perspective, recorded in New York in 1997. 

Listen To The Moon is quite long for a juvenile novel at 444 pages and the pacing is sometimes inconsistent. In some ways it is a complex novel, with many narrators, a story within a story, that begins in 1915 and ends in 1997. 

Morpurgo does his usual excellent job of creating the setting for the novel which is the Isles of Scilly. A map of the isles would have been helpful in orienting young readers, who outside of the United Kingdom, are probably not familiar with this part of the world.

The simple life of the people is well portrayed as are the attitudes common in the early twentieth century. The anti-German sentiment of the islanders is a main focus of the storyline and is directed towards the young girl, "Lucy Lost" who comes to the island community and the family who generously takes her in. At times the bad treatment of the Wheatcrofts seems overdone, perhaps to demonstrate that such emotions are often not rational and at the time were very intense.

The people of Scilly have a reputation for risking their lives to save sailors who are shipwrecked. Capitan Klausen of the U boat that sank the Lusitania tells Merry that he rescued her because of the courage and kindness of the islanders from Scilly who rowed out to the wreck of the Schiller many years ago to save his uncle. As a result, "...the order was given at the beginning of the war that no German warships will ever attack any boats of any kind around the Isles of Scilly." This same act of courage and kindness is repeated months later when Uncle Billy rescues a German sailor, Wilhelm Kreuz who had saved Merry, from his wrecked U boat. When their connection becomes known, the islanders are forced to reconsider their views on Germans. As Dr. Crow writes in his journal, "Anyone who knows what he did for Lucy - or, as I should now say, for Merry - will, I trust, remember him as a good German, a kind German - one, I am sure, of many. Even in the midst of this terrible conflict, we should all do so well to remember that, and remember him."

Morpurgo's description of the torpedoing and sinking of the Lusitania, experienced through the eyes of Merry MacIntyre are very well done. The author effectively portrays the horror and trauma a young Merry experiences during the chaos of the rapidly sinking ship which was listing so badly many of the lifeboats could not be launched. Placed into a lifeboat with a small child, Celia, Merry is traumatized by seeing her mother in her distinct Chinese dressing gown, floating facedown in the ocean. She must also watch people down. "I had to turn away. I could not bear to see any more. But I could not turn away from the screaming, from the wailing of the small children desperate for lost mothers and fathers."

Later on Merry tries to distract Celia "...to take her mind and mine away from everything that had happened, from the dying that was going on all around us, from the horror of all we were witnessing. The ocean itself seemed to be writhing and moaning in despair, crying out in fear, wailing in pity."

Readers also get the perspective of the German sailors who torpedo boats but must also watch and listen to the sailors dying. Seeman Wilhelm Kreuz tells Dr. Crow that "It is a terrible thing for a sailor to sink a ship, to watch it go beneath the waves, to see men die. You can hear them shout, hear them scream. For a sailor to kill a sailor is like killing a brother. There were many brothers on the Lusitania, and mothers and fathers, and little children like Lucy. We could save only this one. So we did."

The novel's unusual title is a reference to the practice Merry's father had involving the moon. He told her before leaving for the war in Europe, "Whenever I see the moon, Merry,... I will think of you and sing our Mozart tune. You do the same, so that whenever we look up at the moon, wherever we are, we shall listen to the moon, and hear one another and think of one another. Promise me." Later on, in a letter written to her as he's recuperating in a hospital named Bearwood in England, "I sing to the moon and I listen to the moon, as I promised." 

 

Listen To The Moon is a wonderful story, that offers young readers plenty of themes to consider: when is war just, the morality of submarine war as waged by the Germans in World War I, identity, racism during war, post traumatic stress in soldiers and civilians as a result of war. Morpurgo provides young readers with more information regarding the  S.S. Lusitania, the German U-boat campaign, the Isles of Scilly and the S.S. Schiller in a short section titled Read On For Some Background Information on Listen to the Moon.

Book Details:

Listen To The Moon by Michael Morpurgo
London: HarperCollins Children's Books     2014
433 pp.

Sparrow: the true story of Joan of Arc by Michael Morpurgo

Sparrow is Michael Morpurgo's superb retelling of Joan of Arc for young readers. Set in the early 1400's France, young Eloise Hardy experiences a beautiful dream that recounts Joan's heroic campaign that drove the English from her beloved France.

Seventeen year old Eloise Hardy lives with her mother and father in Montpellier, France. Ever since she can remember, Eloise has admired St. Joan of Arc for her bravery and her strength.  A large picture of St. Joan hangs at the top of the stairs in their home. Eloise's mother loves the picture but her father is not keen on it.

When Eloise was sixteen, her family moved. She was upset until she learned that they were moving to Orleans, the city Joan freed from the English over five hundred years ago. The Joan of Arc picture went with her family and was placed in Eloise's bedroom in Orleans. 

With the exception of one classmate, Marie Duval, who makes the effort to speak with her, Eloise feels alone in her new town. She takes to walking along the Loire and sitting near the Tourelles, the English fort Joan and her soldiers stormed hundreds of years ago. Eloise notices a brown sparrow also frequents the same area and she takes to feeding him breadcrumbs and naming him Jaquot.

Then Eloise learns that her school has been chosen to provide the girl who will ride through the streets of Orleans on a white horse as Joan of Arc. She will be dressed in silver armour and carry a replica of Joan's standard. The date for this ride will be May 8, the anniversary the siege of Orleans was broken and also Eloise's birthday. Girls wishing to win this privilege have to write an essay. The ten best essays will be chosen and the writers interviewed by the Headmaster and the Mayor of Orleans.

For two weeks Eloise works diligently on the essay, encouraged by her mother who is a journalist. Eloise's essay is one of the ten finalists, along with Marie Duval. The interview goes well but Eloise is not chosen as Joan, despite the fact that her essay was the best. Instead, Marie is chosen because she has lived in Orleans all her life. Angry and disappointed, Eloise takes down Joan's picture above her bed and puts it in the cupboard. As preparations continue for the big day, Eloise makes the decision to skip school on May 7th. Instead she heads down to the river to spend the day there. But as she's watching the river Eloise slips into the most remarkable dream ever. A dream about Joan and what really happened to her.

Discussion

There aren't too many modern novels about St. Joan of Arc for young people. Michael Morpurgo has remedied that situation with Sparrow. The story of Joan is told in a dream the narrator has, leaving Morpurgo the ability to relate the events unencumbered.

The Hundred Years War between France and England occurred from 1337 to 1453. Its roots probably go back as far as1066 when William the Conqueror invaded Britain in 1066. William was Duke of Normandy, France at that time and his heirs still retained their royal titles in France. Eventually the British royalty would renounce its claim on certain French territories. However the two countries continued to be interconnected in many ways.

France sided with Scotland in her conflict with King Edward I and from this point on the two former allies were at odds. King Edward III of England laid claim to the French throne in 1337. Charles IV of France had died without a male heir. Instead of choosing fifteen year old Edward, Philip was chosen. King Philip decided to take back the region of Aquitaine from the English but King Edward chose to fight for it. However King Edward did not want to invade and take over France, instead he led raids into the country, burning and pillaging. In 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers, King Edward III's son, Edward the Black Prince, captured King John II of France. He was ransomed for three million crowns and parcels of land. After King Edward III's death, his grandson King Richard II became king of England at the age of ten. Peace reigned for a period of time between the two countries.

In 1413 Henry IV became King of England and asserted his claim to the throne of France. The French defeat in the battle of Agincourt led to the King Charles declaring Henry heir to the French throne. Some of the French people did not accept English rule and began to fight back. However the English laid siege to Orleans, a city that was loyal to the French king, in 1428. The dukes of Orleans supported the claim of the uncrowned king, the Dauphin, Charles VII to the French throne.

For many years a prophecy had been circulating throughout France of a maiden in armour who would drive the English out of France. The maid was predicted to come from an area of France called Lorraine, which is where Joan's village of Domremy is located. When Joan arrived in Orleans, for the first time the French had hope they would defeat the English and prevent the eventual occupation of their entire country. The capture of Orleans by the English would have opened up the entire southern part of France.

The Hundred Years War is divided into three periods; the Edwardian war from 1337 to 1360, the Caroline war from 1369 to 1389 and the Lancastrian war from 1415 to 1453. Joan of Arc lived and fought during the Lancastrian war. Joan's "voices" began when she was thirteen years old. These voices were those of St. Catherine of Alexandra and St. Margaret as well as the archangels Michael and Gabriel. You can read more about these holy saints and angels on the website, Joan of Arc: Her Voices (https://saint-joan-of-arc.com/voices.htm ). Unlike a person who is mentally ill, Joan's voices never interfered with her ability to live her life. Instead they instructed and trained her for the mission she would be undertaking in a few years.

Morpurgo succeeds in telling Joan of Arc's story in a compelling but straightforward manner. The novel's attractive cover beckons young readers in to learn more about this amazing young woman who was chosen to save her country. Morpurgo captures Joan's brave and determined character but also makes her realistic by including her flaws too. She's impatient and at times imperious. And despite her forbearance and perseverance, Joan in a moment of weakness, recants her testimony, when her fear of burning at the stake overwhelms her love of God and her desire to obey Him. Strengthened once again by her voices, she withdraws her confession and is burned at the stake.

Sparrow does not focus on the characters who are responsible for her trial nor does the story get bogged down in the actual details of the trial, although there is a short section where the reader experiences Joan's questioning. The focus remains on Joan, her belief in her voices, her naivete at being sold by the soldiers to the English, her misplaced trust in a trial by the church and her trust that she will be freed.

The novel is titled Sparrow because of a little white sparrow Joan saves when she is younger. This sparrow, she calls Belami, stays with her from the beginning of her mission until her death at the stake. Similarly Eloise also has a little brown sparrow who keeps her company as she dreams about her heroine, Joan of Arc.

The only disappointing aspect of this novel is the typographical errors in the book. Other than that, Morpurgo has a written a refreshing account of Joan of Arc to inspire a new generation of young readers. This novel was first published in the UK in 1998 as Joan of Arc.

Further Research:

Joan of Arc Biography: https://archive.joan-of-arc.org/index.html

History of the Hundred Years War: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/hundred_years_war_01.shtml 

Joan of Arc page from EWTN: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/joan-of-arc-628

Joan of Arc Trial - this website contains numerous interesting links 

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/joanofarclinks.html

Book Details:

Sparrow: the true story of Joan of Arc by Michael Morpurgo
HarperCollins Childrens Book    2012
253 pp.

An Eagle In The Snow by Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo has crafted a beautiful story within a story. Set in 1940 England during the bombing of Britain, a stranger tells a young boy and his mother how a chance encounter and the decision to do the right thing appears to have been the wrong thing done.

The novel opens with a young boy, Barney travelling with his mother on the 11:50 train to London, on their way to the safety of Cornwall by the sea. 

Barney is ten years old and he lived on Mulberry Street in Coventry with his mother and father.  His father is now off to war, with the Royal Engineers in Africa. He and his mother have just endured weeks of bombing attacks by Germany in what will one day be known as the Blitz. 

The latest attack destroyed their home leaving them with nothing. Barney scrambled up the rubble of their home to find his toy train and red bus but was held off by the air raid warden. At the insistence of his mother, Barney's  grandpa took hin to check his fields and there they found his beloved horse, Big Black Jack dead. Now Barney and his mom are off to stay with her sister in Mevagissey on the Cornwall coast.

In the train with them is a man whom Barney recognizes as the air-raid warden who pulled him off the rubble on Mulberry Street. Barney says nothing to his mother. But when his mother falls asleep on the train, Barney tells the stranger he recognizes him from Mulberry Street. The air-raid warden who is referred to as the stranger, tells Barney he should be fighting alongside Barney's father but a wound from the last war has prevented him from being accepted. Everyone has told him he has done his part and has the medals to prove it. 

While looking out the window, Barney spots what he thinks is a Spitfire, a British plane coming directly towards the train. However the stranger recognizes that it is a German Messerschmitt that is attacking the train. He pushes Barney and his now wide awake mother to the floor. The train races along faster and faster until it reaches a tunnel and roars inside. Then they hear the brakes screeching as the train struggles to stop inside the tunnel.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspecting Coventry Cathedral.

The tunnel is pitch black and Barney doesn't like the darkness. The stranger tells them that they will have to wait inside the tunnel until the German fighters are gone. He offers to tell Barney and his mother a story to pass the time waiting, just like they used to do in the trenches during the Great War. 

His story is about his friend, William Byron, who went by the name of Billy Byron and how the two of them grew up on Mulberry Street and then joined the army. At first being in the army was an adventure. The air-raid man and Billy were given good food, clothing and sent to South Africa. However, war came to Europe and they soon found themselves sent to the front where conditions were very different. 

On a march to the front, Billy encountered a little girl, an orphan girl, who was close to death. Against the orders of his Sergeant, he picked up the girl and took her to the field hospital. He was certain the little girl was trying to tell him her name was Christine. This experience made him determined to stop the war as quickly as possible. 

The stranger continues his story as they wait for the German aircraft to leave so the train can leave the safety of the tunnel. At times Barney becomes upset at the darkness, so as he's telling the story, the stranger strikes matches to comfort him with their light. Barney learns that Billy Byron was a brilliant soldier who was seriously wounded several times and won many medals including the Victoria Cross.

But near the end of the war, he spared the life of a German soldier who was dazed and wandered out of the battlefield near the village of Marcoing. Billy felt there had been more than enough killing, so he fired a shot in the air, and the little soldier laid down his gun and walked off.  For the Battle of Marcoing, Billy was awarded the Victoria Cross, pinned on his chest by King George V.

Like most Great War veterans life was not easy after the war. Billy eventually located Christine and they married. At times he seemed fine, other times troubled. As Adolf Hitler comes to power and hostilities begin between Germany and Britain, a fateful night in the cinema reveals to Billy the seemingly terrible consequences of good deed done years ago.

Discussion

An Eagle In The Snow is loosely based on the life of Henry Tandey who was a British soldier in World War I. Tandey was a Private in the Green Howard regiment. He survived the Battle of Ypres and was awarded the three highest awards for heroism in a six-week period in 1918. It is uncertain that Henry Tandey ever met Adolf Hitler. 

The story holds that they met each other at the Battle of Marcoing when a soldier wandered into the British lines and Tandey refused to shoot him because he was wounded. That soldier was supposedly Adolf Hitler.  In his Afterword, Morpurgo explores the myth behind the story of Henry Tandey, who stated that if he had met Hitler he simply did not remember him. So readers can decide for themselves if Tandey really did encounter Hitler near the end of the Great War:

Morpurgo tells his story with simplicity, capturing both the devastation experienced by Coventry during the Blitz in 1940 as well as the hardships of soldiers during the First World War. The story provides the framework for young readers to explore the question, "What if doing what you believe is the right action at the time seems to be the wrong choice in the end?"  "What if showing compassion towards another human being doesn't pay off?" The novel offers readers the opportunity to explore these questions along with the themes of compassion, heroism, and war. 

In An Eagle In The Snow, readers are confronted with Byron's moral dilemma to rectify what now seems like a wrong. Years ago he encountered a wounded Adolf Hitler. Sick of war and the killing, he spared the German soldier's life only to learn years later he became history's more cruel dictator. After seeing Hitler in a news reel about Hitler's aggressions, Billy was consumed by the thought that somehow his act of virtue in saving a life, had led to war. Then his guilt seems to be resolved by a phone call from Prime Minister Chamberlain who tells Billy that in a meeting with Hitler, the German leader expressed gratitude towards the British soldier who spared his life years earlier. This gives Billy a brief respite, hope that Hitler is not going to turn out to be the evil man he seems to be. That is until Germany wages war on Europe.

Determined to rectify what he considers a terrible mistake, Billy Byron sets out for Hitler's stronghold of  the Berghof, in the Alps, near Berchtesgaden. He spends days in a village near the Berghof, drawing the eagles that wheeled through the air. But when Billy finally does meet Hitler outside his home, he is knocked down by an Alsatian who is very friendly. Billy had just watched an eagle swoop in and pick off a hare, leaving behind the blood-stained snow. Billy finds himself unable to carry through with his plan, and although Hitler recognizes him, he once again just walks away. He can no more kill Hitler in 1939 than he could back in 1918. He cannot bring himself to do something that is morally wrong to achieve a good. 

Perhaps the outstanding feature of this novel, is the way in which the story is told. The story employs third person omniscient point of view to tell the present story set in 1940, while the stranger uses third person to tell Billy Byron's story. Neither the reader nor Barney know the identity of the stranger until the very end. Although Billy Byron's story is that of Henry Tandey, it should be noted that Tandey did not attempt to rectify his decision  of 1918 by returning to Germany.

An Eagle In The Snow has a great cover to draw readers in but the book is marred by poor binding and likely won't last long in even the most caring of readers. The novel has the lovely pencil illustrations by Michael Foreman which often feature in Morpurgo's novels. Quite simply, this is another outstanding story for children and adults from this award-winning British author.

Image credit: https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/ww1-henry-tandey-adolf-hitler-7184044  

Book Details:

An Eagle In The Snow by Michael Morpurgo
London: HarperCollins 2015
265 pp.

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

Private Peaceful is the heart-rending telling of the life of Charlie and Tommy (Tommo) Peaceful in the hours leading up to the execution of Charlie for "cowardice in the face of the enemy". 

The story is narrated by Tommo who wishes not to think about what will happen at dawn, but to remember instead what went before. "I want to try to remember everything, just as it was, just as it happened. I've had nearly eighteen years of yesterdays and tomorrows, and tonight I must remember as many of them as I can. I want tonight to be long, as long as my life, not filled with fleeting dreams that rush me on towards dawn."

Tommo recounts his years growing up in England with his mother, his older brother Charlie, whom he admired, and Big Joe, a older brother who was severely affected by a bout of meningitis when he was a baby. 

Thomas begins by remembering his first day of school, as he is taken by Charlie. Their brother Big Joe who is older than Charlie has never been to school. Big Joe nearly died from meningitis a few days after he was born. He had brain damage: he couldn't speak well, nor read or write but he loved everyone and everything. At school, they form two lines, with Charlie in the "Bigguns" and Thomas in the "Tiddlers". Thomas is singled out by Mr. Munnings who tells him he is his lord and master and that he better obey his "commandments". Thomas is in Miss McAllister's class where he is seated next to the teachers oldest and best student, Molly. She teaches him how to tie his shoelaces and her smile tells Thomas that he has a friend. From that point on Tommo adored Molly.

Before he began attending school, Thomas's father, James Peaceful died in an accident. Thomas was with his father the day he died. His father often took him to his work as a forester on the Colonel's estate. That day as his father was chopping away at a tree, Thomas looked up and saw that it was coming down on him. His father yelled for him to run but Thomas was paralyzed with fright and didn't move. In an effort to save Thomas, his father ran to him and tossed him out of the way. When Thomas woke up he saw his father pinned to the ground by the large tree, dead. At his father's funeral Thomas was unable to cry or talk. "...I have inside me a secret so horrible, a secret I can never tell anyone, not even Charlie. Father needn't have died that morning in Ford's Cleave Wood.  He was trying to save me. If only I had tried to save myself, if I had run, he would not now by lying dead in his coffin...I have killed my own father." 

With the death of his father, life for Thomas and his family changed. Soon after  Thomas's mother stopped singing and was quieter and sad. Then the Colonel arrived one day to tell them that with the death of her husband, she would have to leave the cottage on his estate. However, he suggested that she come work at the house to care for his wife as the two older boys would be able to look after themselves. He also suggested placing "the other one" - that is Big Joe,  in the lunatic asylum. Without much choice, Thomas's mother took the job as maid and his mother's aunt, whom they called "Grandmother Wolf" moved in. She had once worked at the Colonel's house as a housekeeper but had to leave. She quickly took charge, was strict and was harsh with Big Joe. During this time, Thomas's mother was too tired to protest Grandma Wolf's treatment of the boys and of Molly whom she often hit. 

The Colonel's wife died and Thomas's mother returned home. without much money they began to go hungry.  To alleviate this, Charlie began poaching salmon, trout and rabbits from the Colonel's land while Molly and Thomas kept watch. Finally during this time, Grandma Wolf left their home and moved back to the Colonel's house as a live-in housekeeper. Thomas's family were allowed to remain in the cottage because of a promise made by the Colonel's wife. 

Shortly after this Molly became ill with scarlet fever. Without her watching, Thomas fell asleep and Charlie was caught poaching by the Colonel's bailiff, Lambert. Charlie was made to apologize, but their mother's intervention prevented the boys being whipped. Instead they were made to clean out the Colonel's kennels for several months. Thankfully Molly recovered and visited the Peacefuls on Christmas Eve.

When Thomas turned twelve, both Charlie and Molly left school. She was fourteen and Charlie was thirteen. Charlie worked in the hunt kennels at the Colonel's  house while Molly became under-parlor maid there. For Thomas, this began the separation of the three friends. There was more trouble with the Colonel when Charlie took Bertha, one of the Colonel's foxhounds to save her from being shot by Colonel. This led to Charlie being fired but keeping Bertha who became Big Joe's faithful companion. Charlie managed to find work with Farmer Cox as a dairyman and shepherd. At this time Molly stopped visiting Charlie and they knew this was because of the Colonel. Thomas managed to meet with Molly in the trees by the brook where she revealed that her parents won't let her visit because Charlie is a thief. However, they got around this by having Thomas bring letters back and forth. 

With Europe at war the army had bought up many horses in the village. Molly's mother visited the Peaceful home to insist that Charlie and Molly stop seeing one another. Thomas was hurt by the revelation that his brother has continued to see Molly because he too loves her. Then Big Joe went missing. This happened after the Bertha was shot by the Colonel. It was Molly who determined that Big Joe, in an effort to get to heaven, has gone to the church tower. And that is where Thomas found him.

At this time, the battle on the Marne had left the British and the Germans at a stalemate. Molly and Charlie married after she showed up at the Peaceful home, pregnant with Charlie's baby and disowned by her parents. This was a struggle for Thomas to accept so he kept his distance from Molly. One day when Thomas who was now fifteen years old, was in Hatherleigh to sell Farmer Cox's rams, he watched as a military band entered the maarket. The sergeant-major began singling out young men including Thomas, to enlist. Jimmy Parsons stepped forward followed by others, but Thomas did not. Instead he fled the market in fear and shame, being labelled a coward.

At home, Charlie told Thomas he never planned to join because he has\d no quarrel with the Germans. He couldn't understand why he would want to shoot a German. However, a few weeks later the Colonel visited the Peaceful cottage and threatened Charles into enlisting as the British military needed more men. To force Charlie to enlist, the Colonel told his mother that if he didn't they would no longer be able to live at the estate's cottage. So both Charlie and Thomas pretended to be twins and enlisted together. It was a decision that was to have terrible repercussions for Charlie and Molly and change the Peaceful family forever.

Discussion

Private Peaceful is a story about World War I that explores the injustice of executing soldiers for desertion, cowardice or for merely falling asleep. The two main characters, Thomas and Charlie Peaceful are fictional, but the executions of soldiers during World War II was very real.

The novel is narrated by Thomas (Tommo) Peaceful, the younger brother of Charlie Peaceful. It is the night before Charlie's execution. However, the reader is initially led to believe that it is Thomas who is facing execution and reminiscing about his life. Each chapter is titled with a time stamp, the first chapter being Five Past Ten (the night before) and ending with One Minute To Six (the morning of the execution). In these chapters, Thomas is remembering his life with Charlie beginning with the day Charlie carried him to school on his back. Throughout the narrative Thomas portrays his older brother as someone unfraid to confront those injustice.

This is first seen when Thomas fights Jimmy Parsons for calling Big Joe a "loony" and is beaten. Charlie takes on Jimmy and gets canned by Mr. Munnings, their harsh school master. However, unlike Jimmy Parsons who cries, Charlie doesn't flinch. Later on, Charlie attempts to save the Colonel's foxhound Bertha from being shot for simply being too old. This gets Charlie labelled a thief. But it is in the army where Charlie rebels against the harsh and cruel discipline. Forced to enlist by the Colonel in order for his mother, Big Joe, and his wife Molly to stay in their cottage, Charlie is accompanied by younger brother Thomas to Salisbury Plain where they train and then travel to Etaples, France to fight. 

In France they meet Sergeant "Horrible" Hanley who is abusive and cruel to the new soldiers. He immediately singles out Charlie Peaceful. It begins with Charlie's crooked cap badge. Charlie would not give Hanley the satisfaction of intimidating him and so he is put on extra sentry duty. When he couldn't break Charlie, Hanley singles out Thomas in an attempt to provoke Charlie. He succeeds after Thomas is ordered to run five times around the parade ground with his rifle above his head and he passes out. This leads Charlie to confront Hanley, resulting in him being administered Field Punishment Number One. "All day long Charlie was lashed there in the rain, legs apart, arms spread-eagled."  Charlie wasn't the only soldier that Sergeant Hanley subjected to this treatment. "Caught sleeping one night at his post, Ben Guy, the innkeeper's son from Exbourne, on of the new recruits, was subjected, as Charlie had been before him, to Field Punishment Number One. For day after day he was strapped ther on the gun wheel in all weathers." This especially cruel form of punishment was used over sixty thousand times by the British army in World War 1. In truth it was a form of torture labelled "the crucifixion" that was eventually abolished in 1923 in Britain. 

The final confrontation comes during a battle when Charlie rescues Thomas after he is buried by a shell explosion.  Charlie, Thomas, Pete, along with many others and Sergeant Hanley are trapped in no-man's land in an old German concrete dugout. They are pinned down by machine guns on three sides. Charlie believes it is best for them to stay put and wait until dark especially since Thomas is so seriously wounded he cannot stand, let alone run in an attack. When Hanley gives the order to attack and no one moves,  Charlie explains the Germans have seen them go into the dugout and are simply waiting for them to move out so they can open fire. Even when Hanley threatens Charlie with the firing squad, Charlie doesn't back down but explains that Thomas cannot run and that he's not leaving his brother. Hanley and the men go out but only he returns. "By nightfall there was still no sign of Pete, nor of a dozen others who'd gone out with the sergeant to join that futile charge. The sergeant decided it was time to go. So in the dark of the night, by twos and threes, the remnants of the company crawled back to our trenches across no-man's-land, Charlie half-dragging me, half lifting me all the way." After this Charlie is arrested. 

The result is a sham of a trial without legal representation. Charlie describes the court-martial to Thomas: "They had their one witness, Sergeant Hanley, and he was all they needed. It wasn't a trial, Tommo. They'd made up their minds I was guilty before they even sat down. I had three of them, a brigadier and two captains looking down their noses at me as if I was some sort of dirt. "  He tells Thomas that he told them everything and admitted to disobeying the order because it was "stupid, suicidal". Charlie tells Thomas that the military commanders knew that the attack was futile but that didn't matter. His record of "insubordination", of being wounded in the foot all sealed his fate. In the end, Charlie Peaceful was executed. 

Charlie Peaceful's trial and execution highlights the unethical treatment of soldiers during World War 1 court martials. This included the lack of legal representation, and the absence of witnesses for the soldiers' defense. The execution of soldiers by all countries during World War I was seen as a way to enforce discipline ensuring that soldiers obeyed orders to attack, even when the situation seemed "suicidal" to the soldiers. It was also considered a deterrent to desertion. The British often carried out these executions before major offensives for this reason. The result was three hundred and six British soldiers were executed by firing squad during World War I. 

As author Michael Morpurgo writes in his Author's Note, "That a shameful injustice had been done to these unfortunate men seemed to me beyond doubt. Their judges called them "worthless."  Their trials, or court martials, were brief, under twenty minutes in some cases. Twenty minutes for a man's life. Often they had no one to speak for them and no witnesses were called in their defense. There was, I felt, a presumption of guilt. We know now, as they knew then, that most of these men were traumatized by shell shock. When their ends came it was always at dawn, and often they were shot by a firing squad made up of unwilling friends and comrades. The youngest soldier to be executed was just seventeen."

It also frames the growing disillusionment of soldiers as the war dragged on. The initial sense of patriotism gradually waned as both sides seems to achieve little progress. This is expressed by Charlie and Thomas's friend Pete who becomes angry upon hearing that Charlie has told his mother that they are "having a fine time in Belgium".  Pete angrily responds, "So that's what we're having, is it?...A fine time. Why does he tell them that? Why doesn't he say what it's really like out here, what a hopeless bloody mess it all is, how there's good men, thousands of them, dying for nothing -- for nothing!..."

Author Michael Morpurgo effectively portrays the brutality of war in the novel. Soldiers like Charlie and Thomas and many of their school friends, are coerced into enlisting. Thomas experiences the wrath of an old woman who accuses him of being a coward while Charlie is bullied into enlisting by the Colonel. Although they are physically trained in England, it isn't until they see the huge training camp and see the wounded that Thomas and his brother begin to understand what the war might be like. Morpurgo captures the terror Thomas experiences during a gas attack even though he has a mask on. There are vivid descriptions of the rats and freezing mud in the trenches, the shelling, charges across no-man's-land, and the deaths of friends and mentors. Thomas remembers the fear, the panic and the pain of loss.

Private Peaceful is a novel of contrasts. The Peaceful family is one of love and kindness, of helping one another. Their simple tenderness and care for Big Joe is touching and its clear he has taught them to care for one another by his innocence and love for everything and everyone. In contrast to the rhythms of rural life in England is the chaos of war where the noise, fear, pain and death are ovewhelming.

Morpurgo has crafted believable characters in Charlie and Thomas, and in many of the secondary characters. The two brothers are friends and competitors with Thomas looking up to his older brother. Charlie is protective of Thomas and is a role model. Both Charlie and Thomas love Molly but it is Charlie who marries her. Knowing he will die, Charlie asks Thomas to take care of her and their little boy, Tommo. And as a final gift to Thomas, Charlie tells him that he was never responsible for their father's death. 

The novel concludes with a Postscript about the World War 1 court martials and that the men who were executed were likely suffering from shell shock or what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It also mentions that these men are still not pardoned. Morporgo's novel was published and 2004 and these men were "conditionally" pardoned in 2006.

Book Details:

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
Toronto: Scholastic Press 2004
208pp.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

War Horse tells the story of Joey, a red bay, in the voice of the now famous horse. 

Joey's earliest memories are that of hilly fields and dark, damp stables but he well remembers the day of the horse sale.  That day Joey was separated forever from his mother in the auction ring when he was not yet six months old. As an old Irish draft horse, Joey's mother was quickly sold but Joey proved more difficult to sell. Finally he was sold, for three guineas to a farmer. Never having been separated from his mother nor touched by a man, Joey panicked and attempted to bolt. But he was quickly subdued and tethered behind a farm cart with a short rope and followed it to his new home. 

In the stable of his new home, Joey watches as the old mare that had pulled the cart is viciously struck by their owner. Joey was given no water nor feed but eventually two people came to the barn: a young boy named Albert and his mother. Albert is certain this new horse will be wonderful. He noticed Joey's red colour and the white cross on his nose. Albert wants to rub Joey down as he was thoroughly wet, but his mother tells him to leave the horse alone as his father requested. Albert is puzzled as to why his father, who was drunk at the auction, bought a horse when they needed a calf. Albert's mother explained that his father had fights over fencing with Farmer Easton, and wanted to win the bidding war with him over this horse. Albert tended to Joey, gently rubbing him and talking softly, telling him what they would do together. He brought Joey water and fresh, sweet hay and gave him the name of Joey because it rhymes with Zoey and he promised to care for Joey.

For two years, Joey and Albert grew together. Albert trains Joey walking and trotting him and teaching him to come at his whistle. The old mare, Zoey, who was also a working horse, helps Joey adapt to his new life on the Narracott farm. Gradually, Joey came to trust and love Albert and his gentle manner. But Joey never trusts Albert's father and never allows him to come too close. One day, Albert's father attempts to whip Joey who was so terrified he kicked the farmer in the leg.  Albert's father gave his son an ultimatum: "...if that animal is not plowing straight as an arrow inside a week, he'll be sold, and that's a promise."  Albert agreed to train Joey but told his father he must promise to never raise a whip to his horse again. And so, alongside Zoey, Joey's training as a farm horse began. After a week, Joey had learned to plow and Albert's father was satisfied as he'd won his bet with Farmer Easton.

Months later, Albert told the two horses that there is likely to be a war. Albert, now fifteen, wants to be a soldier: he believes he would be a good soldier and that Joey would make a good war horse. And then on a hot summer evening, Albert's father returned home from the village with the news that Britain is at war with Germany. While Albert's father believed the war would be over in a few months, his mother was terrified.

Gradually, over the summer, Albert began riding Joey, taking him out to the sheep and along the roads in the parish. Albert began to do most of the horse work on the farm while his father cared for the cattle, pigs and sheep. While Albert's relationship with his father grew strained, it was even more so with his mother. Albert's mother revealed that his father had taken out a mortgage so he could buy the farm from Lord Denton. This meant eventually Albert would own his own farm. But his mother reveals that it is the worry about the mortgage that makes Albert's father drink. Albert doesn't accept this explanation but his mother explains that now at fifty years old, his father can't do as much work on the farm and is worried about the war as well.

The situation between Albert and his father grew increasingly strained. After an argument between Albert and his father, Joey is tricked into a halter and led by Zoey, taken into the village, to the green. There, Joey is sold to Captain Nicholls for his regiment. Nicholls recognizes that Joey is indeed a fine horse and eventually gives Albert's father forty pounds. It is at this point that Joey realizes he is being abandoned. 

Albert races to the green, wrapping his arms around Joey and begs Captain Nicholls to allow him to go with his horse. However, Nicholls tells Albert that he's too young and that his horse now belongs to the army. He promises to take care of Joey personally. As for Joey his training as a calvary mount begins. He dislikes the new barbed bit and even more his rider, Corporal Samuel Perkins who is an ex-jockey.  Joey recognizes that both horses and men feared this "hard, gritty little man". Joey respected Perkins but not out of love but out of fear. And although he tried many times to throw Perkins, he never succeeded because "His knees had the grip of iron..." Joey's only consolation what that Nicholls often came to speak to him, sketching the horse. Captain Nicholls tells Joey that he plans to paint a picture of Joey but that he won't be able to take it with him. So, he intends to send this picture to Albert as proof that he is taking good care of Joey. He also reveals that he hopes the war ends before Albert is old enough to sign up because "...it's going to be nasty, very nasty indeed." He admits to the horse that he's frightened and that no one seems to understand what the machine guns will do. 

When Corporal Samuel Perkins enters he tells Nicholls that Joey is a horse that has a mind of his own and that he's a farm horse that's never been properly trained. However, Nicholls tells Perkins to be gentle with Joey, that he is special to him and has to carry him "through the war and, with any luck out the other side of it," He tells Perkins that many of the soldiers believe they will win the war by simply "flashing their sabers around". Nicholls also asks Perkins to give Joey more food as he's lost some of his conditioning.  

Eventually Joey becomes resigned to his new life, although he has not forgotten Albert. During final maneuvers and his first cavalry charge in training, Joey is ridden by Captain Nicholls and beside him is Nicholl's best friend Captain Jamie Stewart on his horse, a large, black stallion named Topthorn. The two horses, Joey and Topthorn are neck and neck. The soldiers and their horses are sent by ship to the war in Europe and see the great numbers of wounded soldiers. As Joey and Topthorn march through the countryside, the two horses begin to form a bond with Topthorn often calming Joey. Eventually they locate the enemy and with swords drawn,  charge. Ahead, Joey sees the soldiers raise their guns and hears the rattle of the machine gun. After the battle which the squadron claims they won, Joey sees dead and dying horses everywhere, and Captain Nicholls is gone, having been killed in action.

Joey is given a new rider, Trooper Warren, a pink-faced young man who reminds Joey of Albert. Although he was gentle and kind to Joey, caring for any of the saddle sores or chafings that arose, he was not a good horseman. As they march to find the enemy, Joey finds that as Captain Nicholls predicted the horses are often left behind and the enemy is engaged by the soldiers with their rifles.  Trooper Warren begins to talk to Joey telling him about his life before the war as the son of the village blacksmith. 

The war is deadlocked with neither side moving and the heavy rains turning the fields to mud. Joey and Topthorn try to shelter together throughout the cold winter while they hear the pounding of artillery and the machine gun fire. Then one spring night, they move out and Joey and TopThorn find themselves in no-man's-land which is a maze of barbed wire and shell holes and mud. Joey finds himself in the middle of a great battle with shells exploding around him and Topthorn and men and horses being thrown into the air. Ahead of them is a great roll of barbed wire and Joey and Topthorn and a few other horses were the only ones to reach it. There were a few holes in the roll of wire and Joey and Topthorn made it through only to find a second roll further into the woods which the two horses manage to clear, only to find themselves surrounded by the enemy. Trooper Warren on Joey and Captain Jamie Stewart on Topthorn surrender to the Germans. Behind there are the dead and dying, and absolute carnage.

As prisoners of war, Joey and Topthorn are separated from Stewart and Warren and led away to a German hospital.  Behine the German lines, Joey and Topthorn are considered war heroes by the German soldiers. "These two horses came through helfire to get here -- they were the only two to make it. It was not their fault they were sent on a fool's errand. They are not circus animals, they are heroes -- do you understand, heroes..."

It is Herr Hauptman who says this but he is told by the doctor that these two horses must be used for the ambulance transport. Hauptmann is upset at this request which he considers sacriligeous as these are "fine British cavalry horses" but eventually agrees. So Joey and Topthorn are hitched to an old hay cart, a situation that alarms Topthorn. They spend the rest of the day transporting the wounded from the frontlines to the field hospital along "roads and tracks filled with shell holes and littered with the corpses of mules and men. The artillery barrage from both sides was continuous. It roared overhead all day..." 

After that first day with the Germans, Joey and Topthorn are visited by a young girl, twelve-year-old Emilie and her elderly grandfather. The field hospital is located near their farm. It is they who care for Joey and Topthorn, groom them, water and feed them, and tend to their hurts. In the summer, they are lead to graze in the meadow by Emilie. She is there every dawn as they leave pulling the ambulance cart, and every evening when Joey and Topthorn return. Emilie becomes seriously ill with pneumonia and during her illness her grandfather tells the two horses that she has lost her parents and her seventeen-year-old brother to the war. She recovers on Christmas Day, a day that also sees the fighting pause.

Then in the spring, Joey and Topthorn learn from Emilie that the field hospital is moving further away and that they are being allowed to stay and work on the farm until they are needed again by the army. However, life on the farm did not last long. One day another set of German soldiers arrives at the farm. These soldiers are battle-hardened and harsh and their horses weary and exhausted from pulling the heavy guns. They take Joey and Topthorn with them. Conditions are harsh as Joey and Topthorn are made to pull the heavy guns, are whipped frequently, and no longer stabled at night. Food is scarce and the battles are now long and furious. Standing in freezing mud with no care, all the horses begin to weaken, even the magnificant Topthorn.

In the summer Joey and Topthorn and the other horses recover. They are assigned to the care of an old German soldier called "Crazy Old Friedrich" to pull the ammunition from the railroad to the artillery lines. The work is hard on them because the cart is often overloaded with shells. Eventually, the hard work and poor rations lead Topthorn to develop a persistent cough, and he finally collapses one day from heart failure. That same day, a shell attack kills Friedrich too. The death of his friend Topthorn and the arrival of tanks - something Joey has never seen before - so traumatizes Joey that he bolts in terror. The constant firing of guns, brilliant explosions and rumble of artillery leads Joey to run into no-man's-land where he gets caught in the barbed-wire. He injures his leg and limps further into the mud. But Joey's run has led him to a place where he will ultimately be reunited with the one human he loves the most. 

Discussion

War Horse is another wonderful short novel by British author Michael Morpurgo that explores the relationship between a horse and the humans he encounters, while portraying the horrors of the Great War from an animal's perspective. The novel is set in Britain before the war, and in Europe (likely France) during the war.

The story is narrated by Joey, a red bay with a white cross on his forehead. Joey is an intelligent horse who bonds with those humans who truly care for him. He is able to discern the humans who are cruel and harsh and acts to protect himself. The horse describes his relationships with the various humans he encounters,  and his experiences during the war first as a cavalry horse, then pulling the ambulance carts, the heavy artillery guns and the ammunition carts. Alongside him during Joey's cavalry training and his time in the war is a black stallion named Topthorn. 

World War I began with the British Expeditionary Force and other countries including Russian and Imperial German utilizing traditional methods of warfare. The main battle tactic was one used in previous wars, that of mounted infantry and cavalry charges - men riding horseback and brandishing swords - to attack and overwhelm opposing forces. However, warfare in the early 20th century had drastically changed with the invention of modern machine guns, artillery and tanks. This meant that horses and the soldiers they carried were vulnerable. While those British military outside of the cavalry units recognized this change in warfare, most senior cavalry officers continued to believe in the use of the mounted infantry. This is portrayed in Morpurgo's novel, through the character of Captain Nicholls.

While still in England, Captain Nicholls believes the war is going to be a disaster based on the new armaments that have been developed. When he's sitting sketching Joey, Nicholls tells the horse, "Back in the mess hall, they're all talking about how they'll get the Germans, how the cavalry will smash through them and throw them clear back to Berlin before Christmas....We have our doubts...None of them in there seem to have heard of machine guns and artillery. I tell you, Joey, one machine gun operated right could wipe out an entire squadron of the best cavalry in the world - German or British. I mean look what happened to the Light Brigarde at Balaclava when they took on the Russian guns...And the French learned the lesson in the Franco-Prussian War. But you can't say anything to them, Joey. If you do, they call you a defeatist..." And in fact, Nicholls is killed during his very first charge of the war, likely being shot off his horse - Joey by gun fire.

When Captain Nicholls and his troops along with their horses, including Joey and Topthorn finally arrive in France, the men are faced with the reality of war. The sight brings Captain Nicholls to tears. "The wounded were everywhere --- on stretchers, on crutches, in open ambulances and etched on every man was the look of wretched misery and pain.They tried to put a brave face on it but even the jokes and quips they shouted out as we passed were heavy with gloom and sarcasm. No sergeant major, no enemy barrage could have silenced a body of soldiers as effectively as that terible sight, for here for the first time the men saw for themselves the kind of war they were going into..."

After their first battle in which Nicholls is killed, likely by being shot off his horse, Joey remembers, "We had won, I heard it said, but horses lay dead and dying everywhere.More than a quarter of the squadron had been lost in that one action. It had all been so quick and deadlly." Despite this heavy loss Trooper Warren who is now riding Joey tells him that there are now trenches "from the sea to Switzerland" and that in the spring, "The cavalry could go where the infantry could not and were fast enough to overrun the trenches." To attack an opposing trench meant crossing into no-man's-land which is exactly what they do that spring with disastrous results. Joey relates, "...the first terrible shells fell among us and the machine guns opened up. The bedlam of battle had begun. All around me, men cried and fell to the ground, and horses reared and screamed in an agony of fear and pain. The ground erupted on either side of me, throwing horses and riders clear into the air. The shells whined and roared overhead, and every explosion seemed like an earthquake to us. But the squadron galloped on inexorably through it all toward the wire at the top of the hill..." At the end of the battle only Captain Stewart and his horse Topthorn and Trooper Warren and Joey have survived. 

The German captain is shocked himself  and echoes what Captain Nicholls had predicted only weeks before:  "What a waste...What a ghastly waste. Maybe now when they see this they'll understand that you can't send horses into wire and machine guns. Maybe now they'll think again."  Clearly the old ways of fighting a war were not working. The British would go on to lose almost five hundred thousand horses through sickness, hunger, and being worked to death.

The deadlock in the war in Europe, with both sides in trenches with a wasteland of mud, shell holes and barbed wire between them meant the use of horses wasn't required. So instead of using horses in battle, the British began to use them in other ways, some of which Joey experiences. Horses could transport men, goods, ordinance, and the wounded better through the never-ending mud than vehicles. The heavy work, the scarce food and the poor care take their toll. Although Joey is of stronger stock, it is his best horse friend, Topthorn who succumbs like many thousands of British horses. 

While Joey's war experiences are the main part of the story, it is bookended by a second story, that of his relationship with a young British boy, Albert (Berty) Narracott. Albert's father buys Joey, a colt, in a drunken bet with another farmer. Albert immediately takes to the red bay colt, naming him, caring for him and training him. Albert and Joey form a lasting bond so that when Albert's father sells Joey, Albert makes a promise to the young horse, "Wherever you are, I'll find you, Joey."  And so while Joey is a war horse Albert comes of age and joins the Veterinary Corps in the hopes that somehow, some way he will meet up with Albert. And that is exactly what happens through a remarkable bit of luck.

Reminiscent of the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914, Joey is the reason for a brief pause in the conflict. Having wandered into no-man's-land, terrified and now lame, Joey is claimed by both a German soldier and a British soldier. To decide ownership, the German suggests they flip a coin and this leads to the British soldier winning the toss. Joey is headed to a British veterinary hospital.  However, this event serves to also show, as did the Christmas Truce, how futile the conflict really was. The German soldier tells the British soldier, "We have shown them, haven't we? We have shown them that any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other. That is all it needs, no?"

And so because of this chance event, Joey is reunited with Albert. But the story doesn't end there and it almost doesn't end with Joey and Albert permanently reunited. Master storyteller, Michael Morpurgo adds a few more twists the least of which is the kindness of an old man who has lost everything in the war offers hope in a world destroyed by war.

War Horse is a wonderful short novel, that evokes so many emotions: the horror and futility of war, the pain of loss, the joy of a deep bond between a boy and his horse, and the happiness of reunion. It is the mark of a good writer that a reader can experience so much from a story so well told.

Farm Boy, the sequel to War Horse is due to be published in March 2012. In this follow up, Albert's son is now an old man who reminisces about his war-hero father, life on the farm and their horses, Joey and Zoey.

Book Details:
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
New York: Scholastic Press   2007 (1982)
165 pp.

Warhorse. Movie Review

War Horse is a drama about a boy and his beloved horse, whom he loses to the cavalry in the Great War (World War I).

Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and his parents, Ted and Rosie, are tenant farmers on the estate of a wealthy man named Lyons (David Thewlis). When Ted attends a local auction, he gets into a bidding war with Lyons and ends up paying 30 guineas that he cannot afford, for a thoroughbred horse that is skitterish, stubborn and completely useless to him.

When Albert sees the horse his father has purchased he is thrilled because he has loved this horse from afar for some time. He reassures his father that he will train the horse whom he names Joey, to pull the plough. Despite ridicule and hostility from Lyons and his sons, Albert does succeed in training Joey to plough and his gentle ways with the horse calm and tame him. They form a bond that is deep and lasting.


However, when disaster strikes, Ted is forced to sell Joey to the British cavalry in order to save the farm. World War I has just broken out and this means that Joey will go overseas with the British army to fight in the war. Albert is stricken to learn this but he is reassured by Captain Nicholls who has purchased Joey, that he will write to him and take good care of Joey.

What follows are the adventures of Joey throughout the Great War, as he passes from Nicholls who dies during a cavalry charge against the Germans, into the hands of many different people including the German army. Joey is deeply traumatized as a workhorse in the German army and flees through the trenches and into No Man's Land, in a final effort to escape. There in a frenzied terror, he is trapped in the barbed wire, unable to free himself and horribly wounded. When the English and Germans realize what has happened, they work together to free the injured animal. Who he will go with is determined by a toss of a coin; the English win and Joey is taken to a field hospital.

Meanwhile when Albert comes of age, he joins the war effort and is sent overseas. Albert is seriously injured in a gas attack and is taken to a field hospital to be treated. It is there that he is reunited with his beloved horse.

Discussion

In War Horse, director Steven Spielberg has taken an great animal story and made it into an old style Hollywood movie. The cinematography is incredibly beautiful with the gorgeous Devon countryside in stark contrast to the stark, macabre reality of No Man's Land. The acting is superb; no actor overwhelms the story and takes it away from the main character - which is of course, the horse. Jeremy Irvine is an adequate Albert. Many of the secondary characters who are soldiers are well cast.

War Horse is a book written by British author, Michael Morpurgo for children ages 9 to 12 and the movie takes this into account. Spielberg captures the reality of war without all the gore and blood. For example, when the two young German deserters are caught, their execution in a field is blocked out by the timely passing of the blade of a nearby windmill. No Man's Land, pock marked, filled with corpses, smoke and fire, is eery but not overly frightening. Even Joey, when completely caught in the barbed wire, has injuries that are suggested but not really shown. A horse racing through fences and fences of barbed wire would be a bloodied mess. Just watching Joey race through the black doom of No Man's Land is enough to convey the absolute distress of the horse and the horror of it all. The occasional use of humour to provide comic relief is well done. One of the best scenes in the movie is the interaction between the British and German soldiers as they work together briefly to free Joey. 

Unlike the movie version, in the book Joey's reuniting with Albert is much less dramatic, though no less emotional. For Albert has joined the Veterinary Corps as a verterinary orderlie in the hopes of finding his beloved horse. And find him, he did. In this aspect the book is very different from the movie where Albert is a member of the British infantry who leads a charge across no-man's land, only to be gassed.

This is a great movie, well suited for boys aged 9 to 12 years of age. At almost 2 hours in length, it's a bit long and could have been shortened somewhat by about 20 minutes. But otherwise, it is highly recommended because it does provide a somewhat realistic portrayal of the brutality of war on men and animals.