Author | Michael Morpurgo |
---|---|
Illustrator | Sarah Young |
Language | English |
Genre | Children's |
Set in | Indonesia |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 2009 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | |
Pages | 347 |
Awards | Independent Bookseller's Children's Book of the Year 2010 |
ISBN | 978-0-00-726701-9 |
OCLC | 373477685 |
Running Wild is a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo first published in 2009 by HarperCollins . It recounts the adventures of a boy who has to survive in the Indonesian jungle after being rescued from a tsunami by an elephant. The novel is loosely based on the true story of a girl who was saved from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami by an elephant. In 2016, Samuel Adamson adapted the book for the stage, in a production directed by Timothy Sheader at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.
Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo starts with a boy, Will Robert, riding an elephant along a beach, whilst on holiday in Indonesia. Will is grieving for his father, Robert, who died in the Iraq War. The elephant, Oona, is in an odd mood that day: her handler mentions that she refused to go into the sea for her usual morning dip. Suddenly, Oona charges off with Will clinging on for dear life. As they ascend a hill, Will witnesses the Boxing Day tsunami obliterating the beach where he had been moments earlier. Will is very sad.
Oona heads into the jungle with Will on her back, and Will gradually learns to communicate with her and finds fruit and water enabling him to survive in the wild. He also remembers a long-ago lesson from his father, who taught him how to catch fish from a stream using his clothing as a net. However, Will struggles with biting insects and leeches. One day, there is a standoff between Oona and a tiger, and Will remembers the poem "The Tyger" by William Blake. Saying this poem out loud gives Will courage. This courage is needed when Will is kidnapped by hunters, and finds out about threats to the rainforest through trade in exotic pets, animal furs, palm oil and timber. Later Will escapes with the help of a chef, Kaya, who frees them by cutting open their wooden cage, leaving Will and the orangutans to run back into the wild. They wander the rainforest until they run into Oona. Will is over joyed to find Oona and climbs on her back with the orangutans.
The idea for the book came from a newspaper article Morpurgo had read about a girl who was saved from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami by an elephant who broke loose from its handler after sensing the tsunami was approaching, and bolted off into the jungle, saving the girl's life. [1] [2] [a] Morpurgo was also influenced by The Jungle Book and The Elephant's Child , his two favourite stories from his childhood. He said "deep down, I've always wanted to write a book about a wild child and an elephant". [4]
British author Linda Newbery opined that Morpurgo has the "happy knack of speaking to both child and adult readers, and the vast body of his work ... are those exploring bonds between humans and animals; with its emphasis on animal instincts and social behaviour, part epic adventure, part plea for threatened habitats, this novel will surely rank alongside his best-loved books". [6] David Robinson from The Scotsman wrote that "the ecological twist he gives to the story, and its message that humankind can be saved through contact with animals, could almost be the template for Morpurgo's work". [3]
John Millen wrote in the South China Morning Post that "Will's survival and adventures in the jungle make exciting reading, but the question of how he will be rescued, and then reunited with his grandparents, hangs over a lot of the action; at the end of the novel, Morpurgo offers no easy solutions to the problem of Will's future". [5] David Murphy wrote in Reading Time that "this story is beautifully written and very easy to read; the animal characters are well developed and endearing; the author has obviously done a great deal of background research, as their behavior feels naturalistic and appropriate". [7] Ruth Bamford from NATE Classroom remarked that "it is quite an easy read and the adventures will appeal to both sexes and a wide age range; the black and white illustrations are few but powerful, and the illustrated drop caps at the start of each chapter are a nice touch". [8]
In 2016, Samuel Adamson adapted the book for the stage, in a production directed by Timothy Sheader at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. [9] British theatre critic Lyn Gardner noted how in the play the story is about a girl, Lilly, (a boy in the original book). She went on to say that it was the "lifesize animal puppets who are the real draw in a piece that lacks a convincing emotional underpinning – Lilly's loss of both parents seem to pass almost unnoticed – and is way too earnest in the delivery of its conservation message; but it's a brilliant spectacle". [9] Primary Times said "epic production, complete with spectacular life-size puppets, tells an emotional and moving story of love, loss and loyalty and of living for the moment". [10]
Lord of the Flies is the 1954 debut novel of British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. The novel's themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.
Mowgli is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then became the most prominent character in the collections The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (1894–1895), which also featured stories about other characters.
The Jungle Book is an 1894 collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. Most stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seeonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. First published in 1895, it features five stories about Mowgli and three unrelated stories, all but one set in India, most of which Kipling wrote while living in Vermont. All of the stories were previously published in magazines in 1894–5, often under different titles. The 1994 film The Jungle Book used it as a source.
The Wild Thornberrys is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, Steve Pepoon, David Silverman, and Stephen Sustarsic for Nickelodeon. The series portrays the zany hijinks of a family of nomadic wildlife documentary filmmakers known as the Thornberrys, which consist of the nature documentary television host Nigel, his wife and camera operator Marianne, their 16-year-old daughter Debbie, their younger daughter Eliza, their adopted son Donnie, and a chimpanzee named Darwin. The series focuses in particular on Eliza, who has a magical ability to communicate with animals. The Thornberry family travels to every continent and wildlife environment in the ComVee, a recreational vehicle equipped with safety mechanisms to handle any terrain or body of water, to document their journeys in detail, with typical episodes involving Eliza befriending an animal and subsequently finding herself in peril.
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, also known as The Jungle Book, is a 1994 American adventure film co-written and directed by Stephen Sommers, produced by Edward S. Feldman and Raju Patel, from a story by Ronald Yanover and Mark Geldman. Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures, it is a live-action adaptation of Walt Disney's 1967 animated film The Jungle Book, and of the Mowgli stories from The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) by Rudyard Kipling. Unlike its counterparts, the animal characters in this film do not talk.
"Letting In the Jungle" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which continues Mowgli's adventures from "Mowgli's Brothers" and "Tiger! Tiger!". The story was written at Kipling's parents' home in Tisbury, Wiltshire, and is therefore the only Mowgli story not written in Vermont.
Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister. By the late 1930s, the publisher was Thurman T. Scott. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelling", for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or the trenches of the First World War. Morpurgo was the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005, and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity.
Frank Howard Buck was an American hunter, animal collector, and author, as well as a film actor, director, and producer. Beginning in the 1910s he made many expeditions into Asia for the purpose of hunting and collecting exotic animals, bringing over 100,000 live specimens back to the United States and elsewhere for zoos and circuses and earning a reputation as an adventurer. He co-authored seven books chronicling or based on his expeditions, beginning with 1930's Bring 'Em Back Alive, which became a bestseller.
Private Peaceful is a novel for older children by British author Michael Morpurgo first published in 2003. It is about a fictional young soldier called Thomas "Tommo" Peaceful, who is looking back on his life so far and his going to war. The story focuses on the harsh realities of English rural life and warfare, and highlights the British Army's practice of executing its own soldiers during the First World War. Morpurgo was inspired to write the novel after learning about the around 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were shot for crimes like desertion and cowardice. The novel helped further the campaign to grant posthumous pardons to the men, which were agreed and implemented by the UK Government in 2006.
Orangutans have often attracted attention in popular culture. They are mentioned extensively in works of fiction and video games, while some captive individuals have drawn much attention in real life.
The Butterfly Lion is a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo. It was first published in Great Britain by Collins in 1996, and won the 1996 Smarties book prize. The book was adapted into a stage play by Daniel Buckroyd of the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, which toured the UK in 2013.
Tarzan is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.
Billy the Kid is a British children's novel written by Michael Morpurgo, and illustrated by Michael Foreman. It was originally published by Pavilion Books in 2000. Like many of his other novels, it was adapted into a stage play. In 2016, a multi-sensory sculpture of Billy the Kid was put on display at Seven Stories, where Morpurgo had previously donated all of his manuscripts.
The Jungle Book is a Disney media franchise that commenced in 1967 with the theatrical release of the 1967 feature film. It is based on Rudyard Kipling's works of the same name. The franchise includes a 2003 sequel to the animated film and three live-action films produced by Walt Disney Pictures.
Farm Boy is a British children's novel written by Michael Morpurgo, and illustrated by Michael Foreman. The book is the sequel to the popular novel War Horse. The book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Pavilion Books. It was republished in 1999 by HarperCollins Children's Book. The novel was adapted into a stage play in 2010.
An Elephant in the Garden is a British children's novel written by Michael Morpurgo, and illustrated by Michael Foreman. It was originally published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins, and released in May 2010. The book is based on actual events that took place in Belfast during World War II, and is inspired by the story of Denise Weston Austin. The novel was also adapted into a stage play with the same name, that had its debut in 2014 in the United Kingdom.