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We are delighted to welcome one of our most magical storytellers to this year’s festival. Michael Morpurgo will talk about his highly acclaimed 1982 work War Horse, which was recently adapted into a hugely successful West End and Broadway production and has now been made into a big-budget film by Steven Spielberg.  War Horse is set in World War I. It tells of Joey, the horse of a young boy Albert that is sold to the cavalry and taken to France. Joey’s rider dies and the horse serves on both sides of the fighting before finding itself in No Man’s Land.  Albert, still too young to join the army, sets off to find Joey and bring the horse home.

Morpurgo, the third children’s laureate (2003-2005), has written more than 120 books. His children’s novels, which include Private Peaceful, The Butterfly Lion, and The Wreck of the Zanzibar, have won many awards both at home and abroad. Above all, they are loved by children and their parents. His most recent book is Little Manfred.  It is the story of how a wooden Dachsund carved by a German prisoner of war for a British family came to be in the Imperial War Museum.