Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.
Michael MorpurgoOur great problem, is that children now know whatever they want to know - at the press of a button they can discover all horrors of the adult world. They know very early on that the world is sometimes a very dark, difficult and complex place, and the literature they read must reflect that. Otherwise we're just entertaining them to pass the time.
Michael MorpurgoEveryone is interested in war, in that people don't want it to happen. I'm much more interested in peace than in war but it's important to understand why we fight.
Michael MorpurgoAny story that gets us thinking, and particularly young people, thinking why? Whether it's as a result of reading the book, or coming out of the theatre or the cinema, I think we should just simply be asking the question 'why'? Why did it happen to those people? Was it necessary? And anything that gets us thinking like that is really important.
Michael Morpurgo