Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom is a sea adventure for 11 year olds about a boy who goes overboard in the night and wakes on the beach of an unknown island.<\/p>\n
Michael is eleven when the letter comes. The brickworks is closing and both his parents lose their jobs. The house goes quiet and miserable. Then Dad sells the car, buys a yacht called the Peggy Sue and announces they’re sailing round the world.<\/p>\n
Mum’s the skipper. Michael’s the ship’s boy. Stella Artois, the sheepdog with one ear up and one ear down, is ship’s cat (of course).<\/p>\n
The first part is SO exciting. Months of training, then Africa, Brazil, Cape Town and Australia, partly told through Michael’s ship’s log. You really get a feel for life on a small boat, with the storms, the jobs and the three of them squashed in together.<\/p>\n
Then, on a pitch-black night in the Coral Sea, Michael goes to fetch Stella from the bow without his harness on. The boat lurches. And they’re both in the water.<\/p>\n
He comes round on the sand with Stella beside him and no idea how he got there. The island is thick with forest and howling gibbons, and there’s no fresh water anywhere he looks. It feels like something is watching them.<\/p>\n
So who pulled him out of the sea? You’re left wondering for a while. But from the very first page Michael tells you he’s keeping a promise to a friend called Kensuke, so you know he won’t be alone forever.<\/p>\n
It’s told by Michael looking back as a grown-up, which gives it a calm, steady voice even when things are scary. And Stella is an absolute star throughout.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. Being lost at sea is genuinely frightening here. Mum has been ill on the boat, Michael treads water in the dark thinking about sharks, and on the island he’s alone and thirsty with no idea if his parents are safe. For a child who worries about being apart from family, it might be a lot. For one who loves a survival story, it’s hard to beat.<\/p>\n
If being cut off from the world is what grips them, Where the World Ends is another survival story on a rock in the ocean. A group of boys wait on a sea stac for a boat home that doesn’t come. It’s darker and reads older, so it suits a confident reader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom is a sea adventure for 11 year olds about a boy who goes overboard in the night and wakes on the beach of an unknown island. Michael is eleven when the letter comes. The brickworks is closing and both his parents lose their jobs. The house goes quiet and miserable. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13463,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9724,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Where the World Ends","lr_seo_hook":"A dog, a storm, a night overboard and an island that seems to be watching."},"book_tag":[1045],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[721],"class_list":["post-7885","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-adventure-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-michael-morpurgo"],"yoast_title":"Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A dog, a storm, a night overboard and an island that seems to be watching. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n