War Horse discussion

War Horse

By Michael Morpurgo

Copyright date: 1982

My Interpretation

In the book, War Horse by Michael Morpurgo there is a farmer who buys a horse and then the horse strays from they farm. All of this went along during the time of WW1. The main character is Joey, the horse.The author describes him he is a beautiful horse and really healthy and well built. The war was one thing that kept him from reuniting with his old master and loving friend, Albert.

There are many conflicts in the story. One of the main conflicts in the story is was the war. Alberts father faced hard times so he sold the horse to a war captain. During the war Joey rode into battle and pulled the ammunition cart. Joey did make friends and stayed with them till the end but missed his old friend Albert and wanted to go back home.

I would say that the over all theme of this book is to be strong even when things are tough and almost unbearable. It also has strong feeling against the war One element that would show this is when the tanks were coming over the top of the hill after Topthorn had died and Joey took off running showing determination.

The way it was told shows the compassion the author felt. The author explained in detail what the horse went through and how he went through it. the personification the author gives the horse makes me think if the horse had been human, he would had a rough childhood.

People who like horses would like this book. Also people who like wars and conflict would like this book, or people suspense and surprises would also like this book.


Source: Morpurgo, M. (1982). War Horse. New York. Scholastic.

I don't like the way that the author tells the story through the horse's point of view because he can't talk and it gets very dull and boring.

I thought the movie was just OK, but Hollywood rarely does horses well. The incessant snorting about drove me crazy, so when I ran across this audio book at the library, I thought I'd see if the book was better. It was & it turns out the movie was fairly faithful to the book, so bring plenty of tissues. It reminds me a lot of Black Beauty since it is told from the horse's point of view. It's a bit sappy at times, but not terribly often & gives a great view of WWI. Better still, it's short. It's worth reading.

I honesty thought for people who don’t know much about World War I, especially the use of horses in it, this would probably be a nice, quick read for learning more about this time. Sure, not everything is realistic for showing the true horrors of the “war to end all wars” and this book doesn’t give that much for details and information about the war, but it does take a cool dive into history. One more thing, horse people (like me) would enjoy this book because all of the story is from a horse’s perspective.