By Leigh Ballard
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, is not a big book, but it is full. It is full of trust and companionship, full of fear and violence, full of joy, but also excruciating sadness. Mostly, though, it is full of loyalty and ties of friendship. (The reader will probably need a hanky.)
Interestingly, the story is told from the first person-in the horse’s voice. The horse is Joey, who is sold out of an idyllic farm life and the love and kind care of a boy, Albert, into a life of bitter drudgery and the brutality of war. The setting is World War I Europe: battlefields, hospitals, mud. Now and then Joey has a reprieve from war, and he and his horse friends can graze peacefully in fields. Mostly, though, they are beasts of burden for the war, and kindness is not their daily experience.
The young boy, Albert, is heartbroken by the loss of his horse and vows to find Joey again someday. The reader doesn’t hear of Albert again except in Joey’s memory of better days. But finally, the end of the war comes, and miraculously Joey and Albert are reunited.
This book has been made into a stage production, and now is a Steven Speilberg movie set to open at Christmas. It is sure to be a high-drama and action-packed movie.
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, is not a big book, but it is full. It is full of trust and companionship, full of fear and violence, full of joy, but also excruciating sadness. Mostly, though, it is full of loyalty and ties of friendship. (The reader will probably need a hanky.)
Interestingly, the story is told from the first person-in the horse’s voice. The horse is Joey, who is sold out of an idyllic farm life and the love and kind care of a boy, Albert, into a life of bitter drudgery and the brutality of war. The setting is World War I Europe: battlefields, hospitals, mud. Now and then Joey has a reprieve from war, and he and his horse friends can graze peacefully in fields. Mostly, though, they are beasts of burden for the war, and kindness is not their daily experience.
The young boy, Albert, is heartbroken by the loss of his horse and vows to find Joey again someday. The reader doesn’t hear of Albert again except in Joey’s memory of better days. But finally, the end of the war comes, and miraculously Joey and Albert are reunited.
This book has been made into a stage production, and now is a Steven Speilberg movie set to open at Christmas. It is sure to be a high-drama and action-packed movie.
