Michael Morpurgo talks to Daniel Hahn

Bestselling children’s author Sir Michael Morpurgo discusses his retelling of the story about a courageous and kind-spirited horse, Black Beauty, and the connection and interaction with the people he meets, as well as the compassion and cruelty he witnesses. The parallels are there to one of Morpurgo’s best-known novels War Horse in this wonderful retelling of Anna Sewell’s classic for today’s readers. This new edition is beautifully illustrated by Tom de Freston.

Morpurgo has written more than 100 books and has won the Smarties Prize, the Whitbread Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. He is author of Private Peaceful and War Horse, which has been made into an award-winning play and a Golden Globe-nominated film. Morpurgo was Children’s Laureate from 2003-2005, a role that took him across Britain to inspire a love of reading in children. With his wife, Clare, he founded the charity, Farms for City Children, which gives children from urban areas an opportunity to spend a week working on a farm in the countryside.

Here he talks to Daniel Hahn, author of The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland and The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature.

Age 8+