Before the Steven Spielberg film, before the National Theatre production, there was the classic children’s novel…In the deadly chaos of the First World War, o ne horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. Bombar ded by artillery, with bullets knocking riders from his back, Joey tells a power ful story of the truest friendships surviving in terrible times. One horse has t he seen the best and the worst of humanity. The power of war and the beauty of p eace. This is his story.War Horse was adapted by Steven Spielberg as a major m otion picture with Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The Na tional Theatre production opened in 2007 and has enjoyed successful runs in the West End and on Broadway.A great way of introducing young readers to the reali ties of WWI. Look out for Morpurgo’s other war fiction including Friend or Foe, Waiting for Anya, King of the Cloud Forests and An Eagle in the Snow.War Horse is a story of universal suffering for a universal audience by a writer who ‘has the happy knack of speaking to both child and adult readers’ (The Guardian).M ichael Morpurgo has written more than one hundred books for children and won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children’s B ook Award and has been short-listed for the Carnegie Medal four times.