Shadow - Softcover

Morpurgo, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007339615 ISBN 13: 9780007339617

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2011

Synopsis

SHADOW broke all Michael Morpurgo records in hardback, selling a massive 23,000 copies through TCM in the first six weeks. Now, the phenomenon arrives in paperback, ready to take the mass market by storm...This is the story of Aman, as told in his own words - a boy from Afghanistan fleeing the horror of the Afghan war. When a western dog shows up outside the caves where Aman lives with his mother, Aman is initially repulsed - it is not customary for people to keep dogs as pets in his part of the world. But when Aman and his mother finally decide to make a bid for freedom, the dog Aman has called Shadow will not leave their side. Soon it becomes clear: the destinies of boy and dog are linked, and always will be...Ages: 7+

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Morpurgo divides his time between his writing and running Farms for City Children, a charity that each year takes up to 3,000 children to a working farm for a week. Michael and his wife Clare were awarded MBEs this year for their work with the charity. Before the first farm opened 22 years ago, Michael was a teacher and his knowledge of children's experiences, plus his experience of Farms, enrich his writing enormously.Michael Morpurgo has won the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Smarties Book Prize.

From Booklist:

After six years in Manchester, England, Matt’s best friend and soccer buddy, Aman, 14, is denied asylum. Now Aman is held in a crowded prison with his broken mother, awaiting deportation and terrified of being sent back to the brutality in Afghanistan. Aman tells his story to Matt’s grandfather, including the horror he and his mother left behind: his father and grandfather were murdered, and his mother was tortured by the Taliban before their desperate journey across the border to Iran, Turkey, France, and finally England, where they joined Aman’s uncle. Now they are being sent back. Morpurgo humanizes the asylum story through one refugee boy’s viewpoint. The heartbreak, brutality, and loss are intensified through the crucial role of a stray dog that comes to Aman in a cave and then never leaves him (hence the name Shadow). He turns out to be a champion army dog that saves the refugees, and the animal story, along with the personal war survival drama, is heartrending. Grades 6-9. --Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0007339615
• ISBN 13: 9780007339617
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288