Book – The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
Genre – Children’s
Michael Morpurgo is one of the most prolific children’s writers around, with well over one hundred books written since 1974. To my shame, until I started working at a primary school at the end of last year, I had never heard of him. I was soon set to rights by one of our year sixes – a boy who would have been able to give me the exact number of books Morpurgo has written as opposed to the rough estimate I just threw out – and since then I have read three or four of his books, and thoroughly enjoyed them.
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips is, like a fair few of his books, is set during World War Two and is the story of a girl in a town on the south coast of England, which is evacuated wholesale in order to let the Allied forces practice for D-Day. Although it is a fictitious story, these evacuations really did take place in towns across the the south coast – something that I was completely unaware of. Much like the other Morpurgo books I have read, the story is incredibly charming, and is written perfectly with children in mind. From the information about the War, all the way through to her assertion that ‘worser’ is not good grammar, but she likes to use it as it sounds worser than worse, it teaches children, whilst being fun and massively accessible.
The really nice thing is that it is also accessible to adults. You are always aware that this is a kids book, but it would be a challenge to not be absorbed and charmed by this book. Anyone who was not introduced to Michael Morpurgo as a child, could do a lot worse than go out and give his books a try as an adult.