An interview with Michael Morpurgo on Parkinson

Late tv viewing tonight; we just finished watching a fabulous interview on Parkinson with author Michael Morpurgo. This was the first episode we've seen from Parkinson for some time, as he's had a 5 year absence from television.  He's returned with a new series called 'Masterclass' where he interviews guests with artistic backgrounds.

If anyone has been reading or watching War Horse, then this interview is well worth seeing.  I knew little about the author, but enjoyed his sharing of advice, history and love of literature for children that I just had to write this up now to 'pass it on', as it were.

Here's a sample of the interview from YouTube:


Morpurgo's story of coming to be an author via his teaching was interesting.  With a mother who used to regularly read to him aloud when he was younger, as well as enjoying the works of authors such as Enid Blyton and Robert Louis Stevenson, he already had a basis of how excellent story-telling flowed.  As a teacher, he created stories as a way of capturing the attention of his class, and was then requested that he should write them down.

He has a lovely respect for his audience, never limiting or talking down to them.  Questions were answered from a variety of people, including children as young as eight years old, to whom Morpurgo gave advice to read well, especially good literature, meet many people and listen to their stories, and to write as often as possible about your feelings.  Practice letting the words flow regularly, but most importantly is to collect a store of ideas by building up a wealth of experiences.


It was interesting that he favoured Robert Louis Stevenson's works.  During the week, I'd borrowed a dvd Kidnapped. This was the BBC version with Adrian Dunbar.  This dvd had a retelling of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson with re-enacting.  This had given us a bit of background of examples to which Morpurgo referred, such as Stevenson's writing style and love of adventure.



I'd love for Morpurgo to come to our local libraries so we could meet him. He has a teaching philosophy I readily agree with.  Here's another talk he gave late last year, where he shares more insights into children's literature and making some wonderful points about nurturing a love of reading (as opposed to over-analysing a work so that it becomes 'flattened'.)   If you can, watch through to the end where he shares a song from the play "War Horse".  The words are so lovely.

Until next time!

Catherine