Kensuke's Kingdom

by Michael Morpurgo

Overview

A young boy is stranded on a small island with a mysterious man who shows him how to survive in this adventure story by the acclaimed author of War Horse.

When Michael’s father loses his job, he buys a boat and convinces Michael and his mother to sail around the world. It’s an ideal trip—even Michael’s sheepdog can come along. It starts out as the perfect family adventure—until Michael is swept overboard. He’s washed up on an island, where he struggles to survive. Then he discovers that he’s not alone. His fellow-castaway, Kensuke, is wary of him. But when Michael’s life is threatened, Kensuke slowly lets the boy into his world. The two develop a close understanding in this remote place, but the question of rescue continues to divide them.

Praise for Kensuke’s Kingdom

“[A] poignant adventure story . . . This well-crafted story has all the thrills and intrigues of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet . . . and Theodore Taylor’s The Cay . . . and it will resonate with the same audience.” —School Library Journal

“Highly readable.” —Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545300131
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/17/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	186
Sales rank:	609,692
Lexile:	730L (what's this?)
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Michael Morpurgo, former Children's Laureate of Britain, is the author of War Horse, called "Superb" by the New York Times Book Review, and now a major motion picture. His other prize-winning books include Kensuke's Kingdom, Private Peaceful, and The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips. Michael lives in England, with his wife, Clare. Together, they founded the charity Farms for City Children, which gives children from urban areas an opportunity to spend a week working on a farm. Learn more at michaelmorpurgo.org.

Table of Contents

1.	Peggy Sue	1
2.	Water, water everywhere	18
3.	Ship's log	25
4.	Gibbons and ghosts	42
5.	I, Kensuke	66
6.	Abunai!	82
7.	All that silence said	96
8.	Everyone dead in Nagasaki	115
9.	The night of the turtles	129
10.	Killer men come	144
	Postscript	162
	Glossary	164

Editorial Reviews

Whitbread winner Morpurgo (Waiting for Anya) tries his hand at high-seas action in this tale of a 12-year-old who washes up on a tiny island in the Pacific in 1988. When the brickworks that employs Mike's parents closes, Mike's father comes up with a novel idea: he invests the family's life savings in a sailboat and hires someone to train the three of them to operate the boat. Before long Mike and his parents, and his faithful dog, Stella, are off on a voyage around the globe. But one night, while alone on deck, Mike falls overboard. After hours in the water and losing consciousness (he dreams someone with strong arms has hauled him to safety), Mike comes to on the shore of an apparently deserted island. Readers hoping for a survival story on the order of Hatchet or Island of the Blue Dolphins instead will find a highly romanticized tale in which a saddened but wise Japanese army doctor, shipwrecked near the end of WWII and unwilling to return home, not only rescues Mike but teaches him to fish, cook and paint ("As I watched [Kensuke painting] I became so engrossed that the failing light of evening always came too soon for me"). The languid descriptions and the clusters of coincidences create the ambience of fantasy; this story reads like a pleasantly extended daydream. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 4-8-This poignant adventure story begins in England in 1988 and ends halfway around the globe in a place that will change the 11-year-old protagonist forever. After losing his job, Michael's father surprises the family by purchasing a yacht in which they will sail around the world. In the first weeks at sea, Michael, his parents, and his dog, Stella, zigzag from England to Australia and across the Coral Sea, where Michael's reverie comes to a frightening end. In the middle of the night, he and Stella are swept overboard in a fierce storm, and he later awakens on an island beach. The island is a hostile jungle full of howling gibbons, voracious mosquitoes, and brutal heat, all of which challenge his ability to survive. Yet when he finds fresh water and food mysteriously laid out for him each morning, he realizes that he is not alone. He soon comes face-to-face with Kensuke, an old Japanese soldier who cautiously protects Michael in spite of the boy's dogged determination to build a bonfire that will signal potential rescuers, defying Kensuke's wish that the outside world never learn of his existence on the island. For nearly a year, the man and boy help each other, moving from an uneasy d tente to a deep friendship. What might have been just a gritty tale of survival evolves into a gentle parable about trust, compassion, love, and hope. This well-crafted story has all the thrills and intrigues of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (Macmillan, 1986) and Theodore Taylor's The Cay (Avon, 1976), and it will resonate with the same audience.-William McLoughlin, Brookside School, Worthington, OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

More adventure than ordeal, this survival tale will fit the bill for thoughtful readers discomfited by extreme violence or gross details. To Michael, the round-the-world sail he's taking with his parents aboard the 42-foot Peggy Sue is great fun, until the moment he and his dog Stella Artois are washed overboard. Michael comes to on a small island, inhabited by gibbons, a colony of orangutans-and Kensuke, a Japanese naval doctor stranded there more than 40 years before. The plot centers around Michael's emotional ups and down as he battles loneliness and mosquitoes, then grows closer to his rescuer, who supplies him with food and water, but makes him stay on one end of the island, at least until he's stung by a jellyfish, and needs nursing back to health. Kensuke has built a small, beautiful world for himself that he teaches Michael to see, and to paint, in exchange for English lessons and news of the outside. When Michael's steadfast parents arrive, after nearly a year's searching, to carry him and Stella away, Kensuke opts to stay behind-but it's plain that his spirit and simplicity have worked profound changes on his young charge. A prizewinning import: sensitive, perceptive, and well-told. (Fiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews