Stop Press...... Michelle's new book Just Henry was published on May 7th, 2008 Click on the picture to find out more...... "This novel transported me to another age with utter conviction. I couldn't stop reading it. Great, pageturning storytelling and warm vivid characters." Cathy Forde Michelle launched Just Henry on May 7th at the One Tree Bookshop in Petersfield Michelle appeared at the Brighton Children Book Festival on Sunday April 20th. Click above to visit their website and find out more. Northcott Theatre presents the musical version of Goodnight Mister Tom until 19th April! Click on the picture for more info! On 11th November at 3pm Michelle appeared at the One Tree Bookshop in Petersfield to celebrate 25 years of Goodnight Mister Tom. She talked about the journey of the book, where it is now and then signed a brand new hardback edition celebrating this amazing anniversary....just in time for Christmas! (click on the picture for the onetree website) In July 2007 Michelle was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Portsmouth University, the town of her birth. (The photograph is of Michelle receiving the Honorary Doctor of letters degree from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, Professor John Craven.) THE EVENING NEWS Top author given honorary doctorate "A PORTSMOUTH-BORN author who shot to fame with a novel about a wartime evacuee was being honoured by the university today. Michelle Magorian's book Goodnight Mister Tom old the story of a young boy who was moved out of London during the Second World War and finally found somebody to care for him like a father would. Now living in Petersfield, she has been made an honorary doctor of letters. Born in 1947, her first ambition was always to be on the stage, and she spent most of her early childhood at the Kings Theatre in Southsea, although she lived in Singapore and Australia before she was nine years old. At nineteen, she had begun her studies as an actress including studying mime in Paris for a year. Goodnight Mister Tom, which was published in 1981, took more than four years to write and was partly inspired by her mother's tales of her time as a nurse during the war. It was also made into a successful TV drama in 1998 starring John Thaw. Many of her other books are also inspired by wartime including Back Home." by Neil Evans THOUGHTS "I suddenly realised this month that my first book, Goodnight Mister Tom, was published 25 years ago and that I should have given myself a 25th Anniversary celebration! My older son has suggested that I give myself a belated one. It's quite interesting to look at myself twenty-five years ago, in London, in my first house with very little furniture (I slept on a mattress on the floor) living mostly on cabbage and rice. I met my ex-husband a year later, and a first year singing student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama moved in as a lodger. I am now living in a small town in Hampshire with my two sons (aged twelve and seventeen) having been divorced for nearly eight years (and we all have proper beds). The student, Heather Cairncross, is a successful singer and travels all over the world, (read more about her on her website www.altovoice.com) and is sitting somewhere in Germany putting this website together on a laptop before going off to sing in the evenings. A few years ago we worked together for the first time on the book of a one-woman jazz musical (hello life!)." A short story, which was published in a collection of stories, WAR: Stories of Conflict edited by the Children's Laureate, Michael Morpurgo, came out in hardback in May 2005 to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of VE and VJ Day and appeared in paperback this year. (Macmillan Children's Books - ISBN 1 405 04744 5 *)  Goodnight Mister Tom was shown at the National Film Theatre in London as part of the 50th Anniversary of ITV (itv50)*** and on television over Christmas.   I signed a contract for a play version of Goodnight MisterTom, to be written by David Wood OBE (screen writer of the 1989 TV version of Back Homestarring Hayley Mills) which will be performed at the new Unicorn Theatre in London in 2008. The puffin Goodnight Mister Tom and Back Home appeared in striking new covers (illustrations by David Frankland), I received a Korean version of Goodnight MisterTom filled with pages of wonderful drawings, and I am told, a dramatisation of it was broadcast on Swedish radio as was one of my short stories. http://www.penguin.com in the summer of 2005, in Holland, a talented company of singer/dancer/actors were performing in a new musical called Cafe Diablo (music by Bob Buckley ) - and I wrote the lyrics for five of the songs.		home interviews goodnight mister tom other novels latest news contact buy the books!
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