Michael Morpurgo's tale of a wild child ranks among his bestChildren's fiction often finds ingenious ways of getting rid of adults, forcing its protagonists to depend on their own resources and initiative. Michael Morpurgo's method here is more drastic than most. By the end of chapter two, nine-year-old Will has lost both parents: his soldier father has been killed in Iraq, and his mother, on a holiday to Indonesia intended to help herself and Will to recover from their loss, drowns in the Boxing Day tsunami.Morpurgo uses, to great effect, the reported story of a boy who survived the great wave when the elephant he was riding sensed imminent danger and ran away in terror. Will finds himself clinging to ...