Extend this into an oral or written persuasive or discursive piece (with the audience perhaps your own headteacher), or alternatively the children could write a letter to add to the parcel, sympathising or congratulating the boy on his life at boarding school. Exploring the parcel will allow opportunities to make predictions about the boy, discussion of how it would feel to be away from home and the pros and cons of boarding school. It might contain a letter from his mother, referring to the concerns he feels some money for buying tuck a pair of socks left at home during the holidays a new school tie and a home-made cake. Introduce the book with the arrival of a misdirected parcel at your own school, intended for this boy. As readers, we never learn the name of this boy, whose main role is to be our advocate inside the narrative, asking the questions we would like to ask and delving further into Bertie’s life. The story begins in the present, with a boy running away from school. However it is the themes of friendship, loyalty and overcoming the odds that children will identify with most in this wide-ranging tale. Told through recollections of a childhood friend, we are plunged into the past to learn about Bertie’s time growing up in South Africa, his transferral to an English boarding school and subsequently his role as a soldier in the First World War. How different would life be if your best friend ware a lion? This is just one of the questions explored by Michael Morpurgo in The Butterfly Lion. Friendship, war and separation are some of the big themes that children can explore while reading Michael Morpurgo's The Butterfly Lion.

The butterfly lion