Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Hardcover

Michael Morpurgo is the author of more than ninety books, many of which have been adapted for film and television. He has won numerous prizes and awards for his work, including the Smarties Book Prize, the Writer's Guild Award, and both the Whitbread Award and Childrenšs Book Award for his novel THE WRECK OF THE ZANZIBAR. In 2003 he was appointed the third Children's Laureate, a position he founded with the poet Ted Hughes. He lives in Devon, England.

Michael Foreman is one of the world's leading childrenšs book illustrators. He has written and illustrated numerous books and has won many major awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Kurt Maschler Award, and the Bologna Graphics Prize. Among his many picture books are HELLO WORLD, A TRIP TO DINOSAUR TIME, and MICHAEL FOREMAN'S PLAYTIME RHYMES. He lives in London.

Starred Review. Grade 5-8–In the vibrant and compelling voice of a storyteller, Morpurgo retells this classic tale. With a lively, page-turning style, he sets the scene as a crude, gigantic stranger rides into King Arthur's hall. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge of the monstrous man and beheads the Green Knight with a single swing of his battle-ax. But then the enchanted knight picks up his severed head and announces that Gawain must, on his honor, meet his dreadful opponent on the next New Year's Day to receive the same blow. Gawain's travels to the Green Chapel at the end of the year, and the temptations he encounters along the way, are the stuff of legend and, like all folklore, are rich in metaphorical meaning about what it means to be human. Morpurgo's sprightly writing brings out all the humor as well as the horror of the original tale, and Foreman's profuse, evocative watercolor-and-pastel illustrations highlight the drama in each scene so that this version can easily be read on two levels–as a rollicking adventure tale or an allegorical saga, depending on the age and inclination of the reader. Selina Hastings's picture-book version (HarperCollins, 1981; o.p.), illustrated by Juan Wijngaard, is a much-abbreviated retelling; Morpurgo's version is notable for including every nuance of this complex and compelling tale.–Connie C. Rockman, Stratford Library Association, CT
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