Best Mates

by Michael Morpurgo

A collection of six magical and heart-warming animal stories, specially for World Book Day, by the nation’s favourite storyteller.

From the author who brought you Joey the War Horse, Shadow the dog and Kaspar the cat comes a pocket-sized collection of perfect animal stories – proving that it’s not just dogs that are man’s best friends…

Taken from the length of Michael Morpurgo’s career, the tales in this charming book will delight any child who loves animals … or stories! Readers will return to the best mates in this little book again and again.

From dogs to cats, and from horses to dolphins and whales, it’s all here in this timeless treasury.

Contains the stories:

• The Silver Swan
• It’s a Dog’s Life
• Snug
• Didn’t We Have a Lovely Time?
• Dolphin Boy
• This Morning I Met a Whale

Genres: Fiction, Animals, Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

Published February 26, 2015

About the author

Sir Michael Andrew Morpurgo, OBE, FRSL is the author of many books for children, five of which have been made into films. He also writes his own screenplays and libretti for opera. Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1943, he was evacuated to Cumberland during the last years of the Second World War, then returned to London, moving later to Essex. After a brief and unsuccessful spell in the army, he took up teaching and started to write. He left teaching after ten years in order to set up 'Farms for City Children' with his wife. They have three farms in Devon, Wales and Gloucestershire, open to inner city school children who come to stay and work with the animals. In 1999 this work was publicly recognised when he and his wife were invested a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to youth. In 2003, he was advanced to an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 2004. He was knighted in the 2018 for his services to literature and charity. He is also a father and grandfather, so children have always played a large part in his life. Every year he and his family spend time in the Scilly Isles, the setting for three of his books.

Reviews

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple yet heartbreaking. Animal lovers, beware.

[Imogen · Rating 3 out of 5]

'a charming collection of tales that will delight any child who loves animals... or stories'.

What the blurb fails to tell you that in 5 out of 6 of these stories, death is an overwhelming theme. I'm not a child, but I wonder if these stories would have delighted me at nine years old, or just made me cry. The best story out of all of them was 'It's a Dog's Life' - mainly because I don't think I've never read a narrative comprising a dog's train of consciousness before. That's why Michael Morpurgo shines amongst this country's children's authors. It is only because of this story that I have given it 3/5, and not 1/5.

[Matthew]

This book made me think about how it is best to treat someone the way you want to be treated. It also made me think about animals and how we are killing there habitat's and that it is a very cruel thing humans do! We should respect our land and our animals!


The writer is teaching us about how all lives have a meaning to them, and just because you don't like something or someone does not mean you are allowed to throw them in a cannel in a bag!


My opinion on the message from the book
This book has a very great message to it, it's not easy to be with someone that doesn't love/respect you but when you meet the right person then you can have the time of your life with them!

[하요진 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book includes 6 short stories. Most of them are quite engaging. However, I personally think it is a bit dull in some stories. The last one stands out to me the most. It is so heartbreaking that I even cried. Michael used this story to convey the message that human activities are endangering the animals and their habitats. It becomes a very memorable story to me.

[Emilija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Morpurgo just has this extraordinary way of making you care about something in the space of a few short pages, from Snug the orphaned cat, to Russ the dog who's being replaced by a horse, to a whale beached in Battersea, based on true events from 2006.

[libs :p · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. There were some stories that I really liked (eg the Whale one) and others that I did not (the dog one).

I’m not disappointed that I read this, however, I will not be reading it again. I wouldn’t really recommended, unless you’re a really big Michael Morpurgo fan.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a nice change of pace as we got to read multiple stories. Was entertaining and left some educational lessons. The stories were unfortunately short and the engagement didn't last long however, the stories were still great.

[Telle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book from a mystery book sale. I must say that I didn't know how much I've missed reading very light short stories that ultimately has happy endings and great lessons because it's for children, until I decided to read this one out of boredom lol.

[Resse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the third and last story. Both highlighting real world issues of the current day. Nice.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading these short stories! I thought of my grandchildren and how much I'd love to share the book with them. Next time they visit, next year, I will do just that!

[Millie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing so heartwarming

[Aruna Kumar Gadepalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of 6 stories bring out the stories of the master storyteller in his usual style that takes the readers into animals, human and their relationships.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Michael’s books. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything and as a result he gets your emotions running all over the place

[Joshua Nightingale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

[Aj · Rating 5 out of 5]

the last story really broke my heart .It's a thought provoking book with deep and emotional stories .

[Scott Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morpurgo is always great. Bella loved the stories.

[Ella :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a book that shows a lot of sadness of death from some of the mini stories but overall they always showed happiness too to balance it! :)

[The Book Squirrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are quite good, but not what I expected when the blurb says "tales that will delight any child who loves animals". They aren't really "delightful". Probably ok for children aged 9+, but 4 of the 6 have death in them. The one about the swans was really sad. The dog story was the best, I thought (no death).

Snug - A stray cat is taken in by a family. One day it runs away and the family think it has been killed by a car, but it's a case of mistaken identity - it's the neighbour's cat who dies and theirs is ok.

The Silver Swan - A boy watches a family of swans over winter. A fox kills the mother, and one of the baby swans dies. The father is mourning, but one day meets a new girl swan.

It's A Dog's Life - A story in prose told from the dog's point of view. This was cute and the best story in the collection.

Didn’t We Have a Lovely Time? - A very touching story about a refugee boy (who'd seen his parents and sisters die) who doesn't speak, but when the class goes on a field trip to a farm, he talks to the horse, and then to the teacher (for the first time) on the way home.

Dolphin Boy - A boy makes friends with a dolphin and the whole pod. All the children in the village play with the pod and the village is saved when they get lots of tourist coming to see the dolphins.

This Morning I Met a Whale - Based on a true story about a whale who is beached up the Thames river. Michael writes this as a story about himself writing a story about a whale.

[Coenraad · Rating 5 out of 5]

These six stories, focusing on animals, demonstrate why Michael Morpurgo is such a perennial favourite who has made scores of children avid readers. They are mesmerising in their simplicity, enticing in their warmth. My favourite is arguably "It's a dog's life", a story told in verse from the perspective of a sheepdog on a farm. Exceptional.

Michael Morpurgo het tallose kinders aan lees verslaaf gemaak. Hierdie ses stories, wat op diere fokus, demonstreer hoe hy dit reggekry het. Van sy boeke is ook al in Afrikaans vertaal, waarvan Krygsperd (War horse) seker die bekendste is.

[Emily G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book of short stories was produced for this year's World Book Day and I couldn't resist it for a pound!

It contains six stories about the interactions of people with various animals, both domesticated and wild.

My favourite was Ho and Hebe the horse, and how Ho spending time with Hebe allowed him to let go of his traumatic past and find his voice once more. Although of course I did love the marine themed ones too, no surprise there ;-)!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite story was Didn’t we have a lovely time because it made me think about people who escape their country and how they feel in another place they don’t like.

Although this book was different from what I usually read, I liked it because the stories were short and sweet. I would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a nice, quick read.

[Kirndeep · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has 6 short stories;Snug, The Sliver Swan, It's a Dog's Life, Didn't we have a lovely time?, Dolphin Boy and This morning I met a whale. The one I enjoyed most was It's a Dog's Life. It had a different format. These stories are about animals as we know Morpurgo has a love for them.

[Amelie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Book Ever

I would recommend this book to animal lovers. Everything in this book is good but bit confused why on the front it has a picture of a dog not a whale!!!

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so nice! All of the stories in this book are awesome. Although some of the stories are a bit sad, I still really like them.
This book is super cool. I really like it.