Michael Morpurgo is the author of more than a hundred titles. His books have been translated into over twenty- five languages, and many have been made into films and plays. In 1976 he and his wife Clare set up the charity Farms for City Children, and in the last thirty years over sixty thousand children have come to stay and work on one of the farms run by the charity. From 2003 to 2005 Michael became the third Children's Laureate and travelled all over the world telling stories to anyone who would listen. Since then he has continued to write and published ten new titles, among them Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea, The Amazing Adventures of Adolpus Tips, Beowulf, Born to Run, The Mozart Question and Singing for Mrs Pettigrew. War Horse has been adapted for stage and screen. Quentin Blake is one of the best-known children's illustrators of the present day. His works include not only his own picture books but collaborations with other authors, and How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen (winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award) was the first of a number of books by Russell Hoban for which he has provided the illustrations.