Conker: Red Banana (Banana Books) - Tapa blanda

A beautifully crafted chapter book by Michael Morpurgo for Egmont’s red banana series.

When Stevie Rooster is mean about Nick's old dog dying, Nick throws Stevie's best conker into the pond. But Grandma says there's a better way to get back at Stevie - become Conker King of Jubilee Park. Nick must use some conkers from the tree in the old scrapyard. And in that scrapyard is a skinny, starving dog who looks just like Nick's old pet. Can Nick rescue the animal and become conker champion?

A moving story about grief, redemption and the love of a family pet.

Red bananas are chapter books for newly fluent readers, suitable for NC Level 3 readers. They are carefully designed with education in mind, supporting children’s understanding of how to read longer books. Red bananas introduce similes and wordplay to encourage an understanding of more literary concepts.

Michael Morpurgo Former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo needs no introduction. He is one of the most successful children's authors in the country, loved by children, teachers and parents alike. Michael has written more than forty books for children including the global hit War Horse, which was made into a Hollywood film by Steven Spielberg in 2011. Several of his other stories have been adapted for screen and stage, including My Friend Walter, Why the Whales Came and Kensuke's Kingdom. Michael has won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children's Book Award and has been short-listed for the Carnegie Medal four times. He started the charity Farms for City Children in 1976 with his wife, Clare, aimed at relieving the “poverty of experience” many young children feel in inner city and urban areas. Michael is also a patron of over a dozen other charities. Living in Devon, listening to Mozart and working with children have provided Michael with the ideas and incentive to write his stories. He spends half his life mucking out sheds with the children, feeding sheep or milking cows; the other half he spends dreaming up and writing stories for children. "For me, the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out - the writing down of it I always find hard. But I love finishing it, then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers." Michael received an OBE in December 2006 for his services to literature.