New Michael Morpurgo book set for November 2020

Michael Morpurgo has revealed his latest book, with illustrator Benji Davies, will be published in November this year. 

The fully illustrated book, The Puffin Keeper, will be published in hardback on 12th November 2020 by Puffin as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations. Publisher Lara Hancock and commissioning editor Emily Lunn bought world rights from Veronique Baxter at David Higham and Arabella Stein at The Bright Agency. 

"Perfect for children aged 7+, as well as for families to read together", said Puffin, the book is set on the Isles of Scilly and follows a mother and son who are rescued from a shipwreck by lighthouse keeper Benjamin Postlethwaite. The synopsis reads: "It was Benjamin Postlethwaite's job all his long life to make sure the light shone brightly high up in the lighthouse on Puffin Island. Not once in all his years as the lighthouse keeper had he ever let his light go out. But sometimes even the brightest light on a lighthouse cannot save a ship."

Making the announcement at Penguin Random House Children's Highlights Presentation at the Ham Yard Hotel in London, Morpurgo (who is the son-in-law of Puffin founder Allen Lane), said: "I loved telling this story, because it was a story about puffins for Puffin, on their 80th birthday, and because I was making this book with Benji." 

He added: "To write it I went in my mind's eye and my memory to the Scilly Isles, the only place I have ever seen puffins. And it was the first place Clare, my wife, ever saw puffins too. But she saw them first when she was young, very young. Her father was Allen Lane, the great publisher, founder of Puffin and Penguin, and all sorts of other beautiful story birds. Like most of us the first puffin she ever saw was on the front cover of a book, one of her Daddy's Puffin Books. The Lane family went often on their family holidays to Scilly, and saw puffins for real. So It was not difficult to think of Allen Lane as the Puffin Man. I have tried to weave that family history, with Scilly, (we go there every year on our family holidays now too), with a wonderful bird under serious threat, with my fascination for lighthouses. The result has been The Puffin Keeper. I loved living it as I was writing it, and hope very much you love living it too as you are reading it."

Davies (pictured left) said: "It is an utter joy and dream to be working on this book with Michael. As soon as I read the wonderful story he had written, with its puffins, paintings and tall ships, it felt like a sea-framed saga that had been bobbing along the centuries waiting to wash up into my hands. The imagery woven by The Puffin Keeper is so vivid, each page evoking clear moments in my mind that I could not wait to put ink to paper. I’m so grateful to Puffin and Michael for giving me the honour of illustrating a story so beautifully and personally interlaced with his and Clare’s family history."

Hancock said: "This is a heart-stoppingly beautiful book, and one we couldn't be more proud to be publishing to mark Puffin's 80th anniversary. It's a joy to be able to bring together two outstanding talents in a book that is such a unique and moving celebration of reading art, and family." 

Lunn added: "At a time when Atlantic puffins are under threat, to have a story which encompasses the heart-warming rescue of a bedraggled puffin feels especially timely and important. But even more than that, this is a truly magical tale in its own right, one that has bewitched us all, and we can't wait to share it with readers worldwide."