- Here are some facts about The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo.
- The Butterfly Lion was first published by Collins in 1996.
- The book won the 1996 Smarties Book Prize.
- Natalie Cassidy named The Butterfly Lion as her favourite book on the BBC Bringing Books to Life feature.
- Michael Morpurgo was unhappy at boarding school, and, when he was seven, he ran away. These experiences made it into The Butterfly Lion.
- The story was reworked for the stage by Daniel Buckroyd and the show was performed in theaters all over the UK.
- When Michael Morpurgo was asked to name his favourite of the books he’s written, he named The Butterfly Lion (along with Kensuke’s Kingdom, War Horse and Private Peaceful).
- The Butterfly Lion is not the only one of Michael Morpurgo’s books to feature a cat. Kaspar – Prince of Cats, Tom’s Sausage Lion, Mossop’s Last Chance, Adolphus Tips and The Nine Lives of Montezuma are also about cats.
- The story was inspired by a number of different things – Michael’s boyhood memories, the experiences of Chris McBride with the lions of Timbavati, a meeting Michael had with the actress Viginia McKenna – a great supporter of lions and their welfare, the true story of a World War 1 soldier who saved some circus animals in France, and the glimpse from a train window of the chalk white horse near Westbury.
