War: Stories About Conflict [Hardcover]

A superb collection of new stories from acclaimed children’s writers, compiled by the Children’s Laureate and published on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II

The pity, the cruelty, the courage and the consequences of many different conflicts feature in brand-new stories from Joan Aiken, Eva Ibbotson, Jamila Gavin, Elizabeth Laird, George Layton, Geraldine McCaughrean, Margaret Mahy, Michelle Magorian, Michael Morpurgo, Eleanor Updale, Celia Rees, and other top children’s authors. From the Crusades to 1970’s Beirut, to the Falklands, many aspects of war are explored in a collection of work that speaks powerfully to today’s young readers.

Michael Morpurgo’s novels for children have made him one of the most popular and critically acclaimed writers of his generation. He is the winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award, the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and The Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. His most recent children’s novel, PRIVATE PEACEFUL, about two brothers serving in the First World War, featured on the shortlists of four major literary prizes. In 2003 he became the third Children’s Laureate, a position he helped to create with the poet Ted Hughes to bring attention to the importance of writing for children. Twenty-eight years ago he set up the charity ‘Farms for City Children’, and for their pioneering work, he and his wife were awarded the M.B.E. in 1999.