His work is noted for its "magical storytelling",[2] for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or the trenches of the First World War.
[1] While Van Bridge was away at war, Kippe Cammaerts met Jack Morpurgo (subsequently professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds[7]).
[9] Their mother was frail, having suffered a breakdown when she was 19, and grieved the loss of her brother Pieter, who was killed in the war in 1941, for the rest of her life.
[1] After they returned to London, the family lived in Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court, where the children played on nearby bombsites.
[16] Morpurgo's stepfather was not encouraging to his sons and was disappointed that they were not meeting his expectations for them of going into academia like him, calling Michael "a bear with very little brain.
"[19] Morpurgo later went to study at King's College London, reading English, French, and Philosophy,[20] and graduated with a third class degree.
"[24] Morpurgo's writing career was inspired by Ted Hughes' Poetry in the Making, Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.
Morpurgo credits Hughes and Rafferty with giving him the confidence to write War Horse, his most successful work to date.
Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife Joanna Lumley.
[64] War Horse has been adapted as a radio broadcast and as a stage play by Nick Stafford, premiering at the National Theatre, London, on 17 October 2007.
[65] Initially intended to run for 16 weeks, due to popular demand the show transferred to the New London Theatre in the West End on 28 March 2009.
In 2011, War Horse was adapted by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis as a British film directed by Steven Spielberg.
[74] Reading Matters website calls Morpurgo's 1999 Kensuke's Kingdom "A quietly told story, but plenty of drama and emotion.
[89] In a January 2014 article, Morpurgo stated "as we begin to mark the century of the first world war, we should honour those who died, most certainly, and gratefully too, but we should never glorify.
"[90] In August 2014, Morpurgo was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.
[91] Prior to the 2015 general election, Morpurgo endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.
Morpurgo and his wife Clare were each appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to young people.