War Horse
Sometimes the effects of historical events stir passions decades latter. Such is the in the case of a World War I novel that debuted in 1982. I’m Susan Allen, stay tuned for Open Range. Even the author of “War Horse’ had difficulty believing that his children’s book that failed to sell well when it first published would be turned into a Broadway hit. When it debuted in 2007 using life size horse puppets, Michael Morpurgo’s play stunned audiences. A New York Times review” called War Horse a huge emotional triumph that left audiences wrung out and weeping. Now War Horse will be released as movie by Stephen Spielberg this August. Mr. Morpurgo felt called to write the book after he met elderly cavalry officer who in recounting his war experience was moved to tears remembering that the one person he could talk to, yes he used the word “person” was his horse. Morpurgo began to retrace the contributions of horses in battle an learned that while nearly two million equines were deployed to the front lines in World War I just from Britain only 65,000 returned home. He vowed to tell their story and his characters took shape after a young lad with a terrible stutter visited his farm. Morpugo watched awestruck as the boy buried his head in a horses mane and began to speak to the creature without a trace of stutter, even more remarkable was that the horse listened. The character for Joey in War Horse was born and generations latter audiences are still moved
by the wonderful mystique of the horses relationship to man.
