Dancing Bear: Amazon.ca: Books

Product Description

Book Description

High in the mountains, in a tiny village, an abandoned bear cub is adopted by a lonely orphan child. Soon they are inseparable, beloved by the whole village – safe, until the arrival of a glamorous film crew who need a dancing bear…

About the Author

On May 14th 2003, Michael Morpurgo was appointed the 3rd Children's Laureate. The role is awarded once every two years to an eminent writer or illustrator of children's books, to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field. The appointment of a Children's Laureate acknowledges the importance of exceptional children's authors in creating the readers of tomorrow.

Michael Morpurgo has written over 90 books and has an unparalleled reputation in the world of children's books. His books have been adapted for the cinema, TV and theatre and he has won numerous awards including Children's Book Award, Whitbred Children's Book Award and the Smarties Prize.

Michael Morpurgo is, in his own words, "oldish, married with three children, and a grandfather six times over." After schools in London, Sussex and Canterbury (one of which was horrible enough to inspire him to describe it obliquely in The Butterfly Lion), he went on to London University to study English and French, followed by a job in a primary school in Kent. It was there that he discovered what he wanted to do.

"We had to read the children a story every day and my lot were bored by the book I was reading. I decided I had to do something and told them the kind of story I used to tell my kids - it was like a soap opera, and they focussed on it. I could see there was magic in it for them, and realised there was magic in it for me."

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."