Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Michael Morpurgo’s best-selling novel, Private Peaceful, is, above all, a poignant story of war and its many life-changing effects on those involved. Morpurgo explores the relentless squalor of trench warfare, the difficulty in facing daily regimes and the various issues surrounding the execution of soldiers for desertion and cowardice during the First World War. At the heart of the novel is the emotional story of brothers Charlie and Thomas ‘Tommo’ Peaceful. As the hour draws later, Tommo reflects on his growing up with his older brother Charlie, with whom he would do everything. Tommo and Charlie used to go to school together, they would eat and sleep together, they would face their problems together – they even fell in love with the same girl! Throughout the novel, the reader is left asking only one question: what will happen in the morning?

Miss K. Thomas