Friend or Foe
Written by Michael Morpurgo
Narrated by Will Welch
4/5
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About this audiobook
From master storyteller Michael Morpurgo comes "Friend or Foe". Evacuated from London, David and Tucky feel like the war is a long way away from their new life in the countryside.
From master storyteller Michael Morpurgo comes "Friend or Foe". Evacuated from London, David and Tucky feel like the war is a long way away from their new life in the countryside. Then one night the skyline of the moor is lit up with gun flashes, and the distant crump of bombing miles away brings the war back to them and shatters their new-found peace. When a German bomber crashes, the boys feel they should hate the airmen inside. But one of them saves David's life…
Michael Morpurgo
Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children. He has written over 130 books including War Horse, which was adapted for a hugely successful stage production by the National Theatre and then, in 2011, for a film directed by Steven Spielberg. Michael was Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005. The charity Farms for City Children, which he founded thirty years ago with his wife Clare, has now enabled over 70,000 children to spend a week living and working down on the farm. His enormous success has continued with his most recent novels Flamingo Boy and The Snowman, inspired by the classic story by Raymond Briggs. He was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.
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Reviews for Friend or Foe
28 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5David and Tucky are two small boys from London who get evacuated to Devon along with the rest of their school during WWII. Both get taken in by a kindly farmer and his wife and quickly make friends with the resident sheepdog, Jip. At the village school the boys remain outsiders, and when they spot a German bomber about to crash on the moor, nobody but their hosts believes them. Eventually the search is called off, and David and Tucky decide to look for it off their own bat. Just as the boys are crossing a stream on their way back to the farm, David loses his footing and one of the German airmen, in hiding up until then, saves his life.I love Michael Morpurgo's writing, it is so understated yet manages to convey so much with only a few words: the deprivation faced by the people in London, especially David and his widowed mother; the love for her son that is apparent (to another mother) in the ritual of a daily early-morning apple; the heartache caused by the impending separation; the strong bond that develops between the two children as they struggle to make friends in the village school, being regarded as 'townies' and outsiders; and the inner conflict taking place inside the boys, especially David, as they deceive their hosts and help the two German airmen. In all his books I've come across so far, Morpurgo speaks to the child (irrelevant if the child is the actual reader or if it's read by an adult), and he always treats them as grown-ups, as someone who has opinions that are worth hearing, challenging their emotional involvement in the process of reading. Unfortunately the last chapter felt a bit rushed in my opinion, and the thoughts of the adults remained largely unexplored; with such a thought-provoking subject matter I would have welcomed a little more discussion of the story's morality as seen by the farmer, his French wife or the Home Guard officer, for instance.A tale for children about ambivalence created by conflict, and how important it is to see the human being underneath the enemy's uniform, it manages to be thought-provoking without being too moralistic.