Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo

Hey everyone! Maymunah here! ?

I really hope you guys enjoyed the last week’s review on The BFG. I thought this week I’d talk about a book for slightly older children.

This book is Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo. I’m sure a lot of you will have heard of him. Michael Morpurgo is a very popular British author who has written a lot of children’s books, including The Butterfly Lion, Kensuke’s Kingdom, The Elephant in the Garden, War Horse and so many more. Those were just the ones I could remember off the top of my head!

Running Wild is genuinely a very beautiful book that I read a couple of years ago. I loved it so much I still talk about it now!

The story is about a young boy whose father had recently been lost in war. As a result, his mother decided to take him on a holiday to Indonesia, the country where she was from originally. As she treats him to an elephant ride while she goes for a swim, the sea is dragged back into a tsunami. The elephant, sensing something is wrong, takes off with the boy into the jungle. Over the next few – years? There isn’t a specified time period – the boy learns some very valuable lessons on survival, conservation and his own identity as a human. He also develops some very special relationships with a tiger, orangutans and his elephant.

The main plot line is based on the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the tragic event that claimed lives across the whole of South Asia. That singular event is etched into the minds of many as the day that their whole lives were turned upside down; even today, some people have still not recovered from the catastrophic events of almost 12 years ago.

The book is incredibly emotional and does deal with difficult issues such as bereavement, growing up, family, greed and in one rather upsetting place, murder. I don’t want to give too much away, but the boy does lose someone very special and close to him and that affects and moves him very deeply. Admittedly, I did cry myself at this point.

Okay, so summing this all up, I’d recommend it to children aged about 9+. I think at that age, they will be old enough to understand a lot of the issues explored and discussed in this book. The lessons to be learnt in this book are very valuable and this is why I believe that Michael Morpurgo is a perfect author to introduce children to as they approach their “tweens” so to speak as his stories deal with very real issues that happen in anyone’s life.

You can find out more about Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo and get a copy on Amazon.

If you have read Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo please leave a comment below with what you think about the book.

I hope you guys enjoy this post. Next week, I’ll be talking about another book that children are sure to love! See you all then!

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