Michael Morpurgo and Autism

I listened to a lovely interview on Radio 2 today on the Graham Norton show as he spoke to the author Michael Morpurgo. What a really nice man, he spoke so passionately about his grandson who is on the autism spectrum and how he is the inspiration for his new book Flamingo Boy.

This book features a boy who 'sees the world differently' and follows his story healing animals, being able to talk to them especially the flamingoes. The boy meets Kezia, a Roma girl who helps her parents run a carousel, she shows him how to ride the wooden horse accompanied by the music but when the German soldiers arrive as part of World War 2 their whole world changes.

It's a story of friendship across different cultures and also with the added ingredient of autism thrown in there too. Michael spoke in the interview about how he admired his grandson and his parents, how they had coped with a major change of lifestyle and also how they could see how life was also going to change as their son got older. He had never thought to write a story about someone with autism before as he didn't think he had the confidence to do so. He mentioned that before having his grandson he knew nothing about autism and still doesn't, he still feels he's learning like us all eh?

If you get a chance to have a listen to this interview please do as I related to what Michael was saying so much about family and I loved how he talked about his work as a teacher. His words about the teaching profession and how important it is to our children was so inspiring. My boys have certainly been fortunate to be taught by some great teachers and they make a huge difference.

If you are interested to hear more about this interview the link is here at:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09twdxs
and if you would like to order The Flamingo Boy it is available from Amazon, here is the link (affiliated)......

Let me know if you read it, I would be interested to know what you thought of it and if you enjoyed the interview too.

Thank you for reading today, join me tomorrow for Pass The Remote, for now though take care.
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