V&A Museum of Childhood's new Michael Morpurgo exhibition offers an insight into his storytelling

A new free exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood celebrates the life and work of author Michael Morpurgo.

Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories, which opens tomorrow, will explore the author’s writing process as well as a number of the much-loved characters he has created.

One highlight of the show will be the original life-size puppet of Joey from the West End production of the National Theatre’s War Horse.

Manuscripts and notebooks for children’s classics including Private Peaceful, Kensuke’s Kingdom, The Butterfly Lion, and - of course - War Horse, will also be on show.

It will also feature artworks loaned by illustrators Quentin Blake and Patrick Benson, as well as documents from Morpurgo’s time as a teacher and time as an army cadet at Sandhurst. There is also a recreation of his creative caravan, where he writes stories by hand in Devon.

​Morpurgo said that the exhibition would give young people a valuable insight into his stories. “It gives them an understanding of how one writer tells his tales, which may well encourage them to feel that this storytelling is for them too, that we can all find our writing voice,” he said.

Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories runs from July 22 to February 25, 2018; vam.ac.uk/moc