Kensuke's Kingdom

This is a real desert island adventure - a Robinson Crusoe tale that is much more readable and much more exciting. Things get slightly confusing at first as the hero of the story is called Michael (as is the author of the book), but once you realise that he's fictional, the confusion disappears. Having said that, the postcript at the end of the book reawakens the head scratching for a while. Did Kensuke's son REALLY contact Micheal Morpurgo? Is the Michael he wrote to the Michael in the book? I discussed this briefly with one of my Year 6 classes and they weren't sure. I'm fairly confident that Morpurgo has not really met Kensuke and that he was not really contacted by Kensuke's son. But I'm open to alternative interpretations! The book itself is wonderful. The relationship between Michael and Kensuke is delightful. It is intriguing that on page one you discover that Michael thinks that Kensuke is an amazing man, yet the first half of the book suggests he's anything but. That constant memory that in the future Michael has grown to love Kensuke made me want to discover what happened to create such love between the two. There is also a 'Wilson' moment (for all of you that have not seen Tom Hanks' film 'Castaway' you might be wondering what that is?!) which made me ponder which came first - Morpurgo's book or Hanks' film. From the reviews it seems that this is one of people's favourite Morpurgo books, though I reckon 'The Butterfly Lion' is his best (of the ones I've read). I don't know how Morpurgo keeps coming up with his ideas - he's written over 100 books and is still going strong. It's interesting to know that he didn't do that well at school, and that he had a job as a caretaker in a school before he became a teacher. His teachers might not have had much faith in him, but his fans do - me included.