This event has moved to our collection of Past Event Videos where you can access all past festival events for a small one-off fee of £5. Please click here to sign up or log in if you are already a member.
Age guideline 7-11
About the event
Be a Collections Detective and explore Michael Morpurgo's writing inspirations!
Have you ever wondered how a writer gets their ideas?
In this session the team at Seven Stories the National Centre for Children's Books will support teachers and students to explore its amazing collection. From childhood artwork by Judith Kerr, creator of Mog and author of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit to early notes for poems by John Agard, the collection tells the story of children's books from 1930 to the present day.
After an event packed with tips from our curators, students can put their skills into practice with a downloadable Collections Detective Pack based on our Michael Morpurgo archive. Create your own mini exhibition or digital story or be inspired by our creative writing prompts to be the amazing writers of the future.
Buy the Book here: War Horse - Michael Morpurgo
How to access the event
From 1 January 2022, this event will move to our collection of Past Event Videos where you can access all past festival events for a small one-off fee of £5. Go to the top of the page to view Past Event Videos. Please click here to sign up or log in if you are already a member.
Teacher Resources
Download the Teacher Pack for this event here.
About the Author
Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain's best loved writers for children with sales of over 35 million copies. He has written over 150 books and won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize and the Whitbread Award. In 2005 he won the Blue Peter Book Award for his novel Private Peaceful, which was also adapted into an acclaimed stage play. His subsequent book, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, spent an astonishing 20 weeks in the bestseller charts, and his enormous success has continued with his most recent novels, Alone on a Wide Wide Sea and Born to Run.
Twitter: @MichaelMorpugo
Instagram: @michaelmorpugo
Facebook: michaelmorpurgoofficial
Website: https://www.michaelmorpurgo.com
About the festival partner
This event has been programmed by Seven Stories.
Seven Stories - the National Centre for Children's Books – is a museum dedicated to children's literature in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne. It is unique as the UK’s only museum dedicated to the art of children’s books. Since it opened in 2005 over a million people have visited the building and many more have engaged with broader programmes. The programmes support and inspire children and families, teachers, librarians and many more people to experience and expand their worlds through books and work with authors and illustrators at every stage of their careers and our programmes seek to inspire the authors and illustrators of the future. Seven Stories is an accredited museum and the work has won a range of awards reflecting their commitment to innovative methodologies and to the local communities. In 2021 they won ‘Best Lockdown Project’ at the Museums Change Lives Awards for work supporting disadvantaged families in the Byker and Walker wards in Newcastle. At the heart of all the programmes is a world-class archive collection housed in Newcastle City Library. The collection tells the story of children’s literature in the UK from the 1930s to the present.