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. In 1976, Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare, started the charity Farms For City Children which aims to relieve the poverty of experience of young children from inner city areas by providing them with a week in which they work actively and purposefully on farms in the heart of the countryside. They now have three farms – Nethercott in Devon, Treginnis in Wales and Wick in Gloucestershire. "As a teacher I realised many children had little real contact with the world around them – to them the television was real. I wanted them to experience life at first hand." Christian Birmingham is a young artist of outstanding talent. In 1991 he graduated from Exeter College of Art and Design and has since illustrated several highly praised books. Christian lives in Brighton, Sussex.
<p>A lyrical and moving tale of a young boy growing up in Africa, and his lifelong friendship with a white lion, from a master storyteller</p><p>‘Will touch all hearts – both young and old’ Virginia McKenna, Born Free Foundation</p><p>When Bertie rescues an orphaned white lion cub from the African veld, the pair are inseparable – until Bertie is sent to boarding school far away in England and the lion is sold to a circus.</p><p>Bertie swears that one day they will see one another again, but it is the butterfly lion which ensures that their friendship will never be forgotten.</p>
