Kensuke's Kingdom

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The book follows Michael, his parents and their dog on the trip of a lifetime around the world. They leave their jobs and set sail but Michael and his dog fall overboard and they wake up on a desert island. Michael and Kensuke make a range of objects using materials from the island. Could you make your own clothes / equipment / tools using natural materials found on the ground? Michael Morpurgo has written more than one hundred books for children and won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children’s Book Award and has been short-listed for the Carnegie Medal four times. Kensuke's Kingdom is a great book to read in Upper Key Stage 2 and it explores topics such as hope, friendship and survival.

Washed up on an island in the Pacific, Michael struggles to survive on his own. With no food and no water, he curls up and closes his eyes ready for the end. When he wakes, there is a plate beside him of fish, of fruit, and a bowl of fresh water. He is not alone … Kensuke's Kingdom is a gripping adventure of survival and true friendship from the author of War Horse. While the producers continue to build a team of production partners, Boyle and Hendry are moving forward with the development of the animatic and further production design for characters and environment. If you could ask the author questions about the book or his work, what would you ask? Watch this video in which he shares the answers to his five most asked questions: Turn the story (or part of it) into a playscript and perform it. Watch this video of a stage version for inspiration:Added Hendry: “Something that we have been focusing on in the last few years is the creative blend of mixed media. We like to see how the things we love can inhabit the same space — the charm of 2D hand drawn characters, the depth of photoreal worlds, the character of miniature environments, matte paintings and the random nature of filmed effects footage.” In August 2018, WildChild Productions took a theatrical adaptation of Kensuke's Kingdom by Stuart Paterson to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [3] It featured a voiceover by Jenny Agutter.

Like Private Peaceful, War Horseand several other of Michael Morpurgo’s novels, Kensuke’s Kingdom has been turned into a play. Listen to the audiobook version of the story. Could you record your own audio version or the story (or part of it)? Look at the map of the world, as shown in the book. Can you identify the places Michael travelled to? Can you find out more information about each place? Could you calculate the distance that he travelled?The front cover of the early edition has an illustration inspired by the work of Japanese painter Hokusai Katsushika. The painter is mentioned in the story, too. While on his journey on the Peggy Sue, Michael uses a sextant, takes compass bearings, plots a course and fills in the longitude / latitude in the ship’s log. Can you learn how to do some (or all) of these tasks? The producing team behind Kensuke’s Kingdom is now comprised of Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding of Lupus Films, Sarah Radclyffe (co-founder of Working Title Films and producer of over 30 live-action films), Barnaby Spurrier ( Deadtime Stories for Big Folk, Somers Town), and Stephan Roelants of Melusine Productions. As a child Michael Morpurgo enjoyed reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, and although this book is very different to Kensuke’s Kingdom, they do share some common ground. Kensuke’s Kingdom is a thrilling adventure story from exceptional children’s writer Michael Morpurgo.

Kensuke, the Japanese soldier who Michael meets on the island, is named after one of Micheal’s fans who he met at a book signing event. It’s pronounced Kensky. Imagine that you could interview Michael, Kensuke and / or his parents. What would you ask them? How might they respond at different points in the story?Draw some sketches of the things that Michael saw during his time on the Peggy Sue, while he was on the island and inside Kensuke’s cave house. Imagine that Michael’s log book had floated ashore on the island. Can you write some more entries in it to describe his time there? Kensuke’s Kingdom has strong themes of ecological conservation and respect for the environment, including a climactic showdown with poachers who are trying to overtake the island, and directors Boyle and Hendry have spent time investigating the best approach for visualizing the natural world onscreen. They’ve come up with a solution that balances organic elements with digital compositing, and which is both unique and visually striking.