Kaspar: Prince of Cats by Michael Morpugo, illustrated by Michael Foreman

This is just a captivating book in which Foreman's beautiful watercolours illustrate a text by Morpugo which is never sentimental or forced, simply a really good story that informs by entertaining and is a lovely size in the hand.  As with many of Morpugo's stories, he speaks a story that contains terror and horror but deftly pitches it to a child's understanding.

Johnny Trott is a 13 year old bellboy at the Savoy Hotel in London, an orphan who is in his own words the lowest of the low  of the staff at one of the most elegant and opulent hotels in London, fetching and carrying for guests and staff alike.  One day he is there to ferry in the luggage of the stunningly elegant Countess Kandinsky, Russian opera singer, and in a basket is Price Kaspar Kandinsky, an equally aristocratic black cat yowling loudly.  So begins an extraordinary friendship between boy and cat that takes them across the ocean on the doomed Titanic

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpugo

Morpugo's most famous text, beautifully written and heart wrenching

AZ: "Heroism or cowardice? A stunning story of the First World War from a master storyteller. Told in the voice of a young soldier, the story follows 24 hours in his life at the front during WW1, and captures his memories as he looks back over his life. Full of stunningly researched detail and engrossing atmosphere, the book leads to a dramatic and moving conclusion. Both a love story and a deeply moving account of the horrors of the First World War, this book will reach everyone from 9 to 90."

The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpugo

Written for young readers, short and utterly beautiful

AZ (MM): "The Butterfly Lion grew from several magical roots: The memories of a small boy who tried to run away from school a long time ago; a book about a pride of white lions discovered by Chris McBride; a chance meeting in a lift with Virginia McKenna, actress and champion of lions and all creatures born free; a true story of a soldier of the First World War who rescued some circus animals in France from certain death; and the sighting from a train of a white horse carved out on a chalky hillside near Westbury in Wiltshire."

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpugo

AZ: "Orphaned in WWII, Arthur is separated from his sister and sent to the other side of the world. There his extraordinary journey continues as he and his friend Marty survive brutal captivity on a working farm, find a new family with the eccentric Aunty Meg and her animals, and discover their talent for designing yachts. Sixty years later, Arthur's daughter Allie sets sail single-handed in a yacht designed by her father, determined to find his long-lost sister in England. Can family love stretch across time and the vastness of the oceans? And will the threads of Arthur's life finally come together?"

This book is split into two parts, the memoir of Arthur Hobhouse as a boy who is shipped to Australia in 1947 and his daughter Allie's account of her single handed yacht journey from Australia to the UK in 2005. It is hard to believe that the memoirs are not genuine, Arthur's experience of being ripped from his family (his sister Kitty), his home and his country and sent without any consultation to an alien country is heart rending and made me so angry, but Morpugo also captures 18-year-old Allie's voices, those of her emails and those of her own thoughts, utterly convincingly.