Michael Morpurgo Month 2020: Boy Giant Cover Sheet

Boy Giant This is one of sixteen resources that you can use with your class to celebrate Michael Morpurgo Month in February, or to explore books from the world famous author at any other time of the year.

Each resource is built around an extract but also shares some of the key themes from the complete story that make the book such a rich and enjoyable text to share with your class. The extracts can be read with the class using the accompanying PowerPoints, and there are teacher notes and pupil challenges to help children develop their own story-writing skills.

This activity explores the use of personification to create an image.

Boy Giant “We were the truth of our own story. Me, and the two tiny people on my shoulder, in the middle of the sea…”

A little hope makes a big difference. War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end.

But it is only just beginning…

Themes and ideas

Boy Giant is a fascinating and engaging novel to share with primary-aged children, combining the story of Omar travelling to the UK to escape war in Afghanistan, with the magic of his time in Lilliput and the lands of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The book raises many ideas and themes to be explored with a class of children:

Refugees and war Omar leaves Afghanistan to travel to the UK with his mother, after the war comes to the town where they live. After a journey overland, Omar has to say goodbye to his mother and travel alone by boat into the unknown.

Key discussion questions: • What must it have been like for Omar to say goodbye to his mother?

• How would he have felt when he stepped on to the boat alone?

• What kept Omar going throughout his journey?

Fantasy and reality In Boy Giant, Michael Morpurgo skillfully blends the imaginary world of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver with that of a very real and very serious story.

Key discussion questions: • What do you think are the themes in the story?

• In what ways do Omar’s experiences in the imaginary part of the story help the reader to understand the themes of the realistic part?

Of course, other themes and ideas might emerge from reading and discussing the book: friendship, loss and grief, home and belonging, as well as the chance for an introduction to Jonathon Swift’s famous work, Gulliver’s Travels.

Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story, describing a storm that wrecks the boat in which Omar is travelling. After reading the text, there is a set of short teaching activities considering author’s craft and the use of personification to create an image.

There is also a sheet with a storytelling challenge based on the extract. For Boy Giant it focuses on using personification as a technique to describe parts of a story.

This could be used as a short classroom activity or as homework to consolidate the learning from the teaching session.

After reading and discussing the extract, hopefully some children will be inspired to read the book itself. You could read it aloud as a class novel or direct children to where they can find a copy to read themselves: the book corner, school library, local library or a local bookshop.

Illustrations © Michael Foreman, 2019

Teacher’s notes for the PowerPoint Slide 2 Share the front cover and blurb to introduce the book. If you are reading the whole novel as a class, the activities in this resource begin on p. 39, so read up until this point first. If you are using the resources as an introduction to the text, then tell children you are going to look at an extract that describes the moment Omar, travelling to England on a small boat, is caught up in a great storm.

Slide 3 Read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs) and then ask children to summarise what is happening in the scene.

Ask the children to read through the extract again in pairs, discussing how Omar might be feeling. If needed, prompt them by asking: •

What words does Michael Morpurgo use to describe Omar’s state? (“weak”; “helpless”)

•

What can Omar see? (the huge waves, other people being thrown from the boat)

•

How would this make him feel?

Ask the children to read through the extract again in pairs, discussing how Michael Morpurgo describes the actions of the sea. You might prompt them by asking: •

Does he compare the sea to anything?

•

What do you imagine the movement of the waves to look like?

Tell the children that personification is the term used when human qualities are given to things that are not alive. Can they spot personification being used here?

Then move to the next slide.

Slide 4 As a class, look at the lines in bold. Prompt discussion by asking:

Illustrations © Michael Foreman, 2019

•

Are the waves really “trying to lift the boat”?

•

Is the sea really playing with the boat and teasing the people?

Discuss why Michael Morpurgo might have chosen to describe the sea in this way (perhaps it reflects how Omar feels about the sea – it feels like it is trying to hurt him).

Draw out through discussion that although the sea has no feelings and isn’t trying to hurt Omar, through the use personification, Michael Morpurgo creates a heightened sense of danger in the scene.

Slide 5 Tell the children they are going to practise using personification in their own storytelling.

Ask them to think of a moment in a story which features something non-human that could be given intentions and feelings.

In pairs, children can describe their object, trying to use personification to create an image for their reader. If children need some examples, you might suggest: •

The car spluttered and complained as it drove up the hill.

•

Gentle waves danced across the surface of the pond

•

The mountain called them forward, beckoning to the travellers with crooked fingers

They can then try to use these descriptions in their storytelling or writing.