Explore our full range of Michael Morpurgo resources here! What is Michael Morpurgo’s A Medal for Leroy about? In November 2016 Michael Morpurgo won the J M Barrie Award for his contribution to children’s literature.This award is given every year by Action for Children’s Arts to a “children’s arts practitioner” whose lifetime’s work has delighted children and will stand the test of time.

A Medal for Leroy: Michael Morpurgo on new book - BBC A Medal for Leroy: Michael Morpurgo on new book - BBC

I read this book for pure nostalgia as this was one of my son's favourite writers as a child. I have so many fond memories of browsing bookshop shelves with my son for the latest Morpurgo novels to take home and read together. A writer that brings history and people to life and who ensures the past will not be forgotten by the younger generation. A writer that doesn't sugar coat the facts when it comes to war and its injustices for his young audiences and yet manages to reveal just enough information appropriate for the age group he is writing for. Maman was French, and spoke English as if it was French, with lots of hand waving, conducting her words with her hands, her voice as full of expression as her eyes. We spoke mostly French at home—she insisted on it, so that I could grow up "dreaming in both languages" as she put it, which I could and still do; but that was why her English accent never improved. At the school gates when she came to fetch me, I'd feel proud of her Frenchness. With her short dark hair and olive brown skin and her accent, she neither looked nor sounded like the other mothers. We had a book at school on great heroes and heroines, and Maman looked just like Joan of Arc in that book, only a bit older.The afterword really had me going, to hear about the injustice of so many valuable men that were willing to fight for their countries yet were denied due to their skin colour. I didn't expect anything less from the narrowmindness which I know can be from both sides, I am so pleased to discover that some of the young men and their families were fortunate enough to have VC's rightfully awarded to them. This book is so touching in so many ways. urn:lcp:medalforleroy0000morp_q9h5:epub:d1b5bd82-6e5e-4b0e-900c-c4d11d7cf6d3 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier medalforleroy0000morp_q9h5 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8cg6wk6s Invoice 1213 Isbn 9780007487516 Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments As Michael reads through his Auntie Snowdrop's words, he discovers a deep secret: he is not who he thinks he is. The visits were always the same, time after time, but one day, as Michael was coming out of school, he saw his mother waiting for him and knew something was wrong. She told him that his Auntie Snowdrop had passed away. At the funeral, his Auntie Pish told him there was a parcel from Auntie Snowdrop for him and she was post it to him right away.

A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo | Goodreads

As Michael Morpurgo explains in an article in The Telegraph, it was his friend and illustrator, Michael Foreman, who helped to sow the seeds for Medal For Leroy. Michael, the main character doesn't like visiting his Aunts Pish and Snowdrop. Auntie Pish is a bit too severe and Auntie Snowdrop follows Pish in every way. After Aunt Snowdrop dies, Michael gets a parcel which reveals a story. It turned out that his family wasn't how it seemed (I don't want to give away too much). This new knowledge changes Michael's life forever. The best part is that this is based on a true story about a WW1 soldier, Walter Tull. The idea that a soldier would not be awarded a medal of honor in combat because of his color is an interesting topic. The book is in no way exciting, but it is very touching. Its goal is to teach us a lesson about how all people deserve respect no matter what. Tull’s exceptional talent for football and his cool gallantry in battle are recognisable qualities in the character of Leroy. I was a little skeptical about this book before I started reading it because I didn't really care for the last Morpurgo book I read. But I was pleasantly surprised once I started reading. A Medal for Leroy is a gentle, poignant story that has some really interesting elements in it. It is about family, love and being true to yourself, and the emotional harm and unhappiness that family secrets can inflict on everyone involved. But is it also about triumph and hope and acceptance and I expect you may shed a tear or two before you finish.All Maman had told me was that my father was called Roy, that he had been in the RAF, a Spitfire pilot, a flight lieutenant, and that he had been shot down over the English Channel in the summer of 1940. They had only been married for six months—six months, two weeks, and one day—she was always very precise about it when I asked about Papa. He'd been adopted as a baby by his twin aunties, after their sister, his mother, had been killed in a zeppelin raid on London. So he'd grown up with his aunties by the sea in Folkestone in Kent, and gone to school there. He was twenty-one when he died, she said. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2018-08-26 06:06:29 Associated-names Foreman, Michael, 1938- Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA1342711 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set china External-identifier Growing up in London during the 1940s, the devastating effects of the Second World War are still fresh, and despite Michael’s careful probing, all his ‘Maman’ will tell him about his father is that his name was Roy and that he was an RAF Spitfire pilot who was tragically shot down over the English Channel during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Although sometimes he feels different from his friends and wishes he had a Dad, Michael can not feel sad about losing him. You can't blame him though, he never even met his father, to Michael he is just a picture. Although he does not miss him, he loves his medal that his father won for courage in the war. Auntie Snowdrop keeps it with her and polishes it regularly, very different from how Auntie Pish would treat it. When Michael was 13, five years after his Auntie's death, he was given Jasper to take care of when Auntie Pish couldn't do it anymore. Eventually she went into a nursing home and, about five years after the death of her sister, she gave Michael the parcel that was meant for him.