Sir Michael Morpurgo to release new book for Queen's Jubilee

The book, There Once Is A Queen, will be released later this spring and tells the tale of the monarch's 70-year reign. 

The story begins with the Queen as a child, planting an oak tree with her father and aims to bring her “historic reign vividly to life” for readers of all ages.

The book is illustrated by Michael Foreman.

#BookIllustrationOfTheDay is by Michael Foreman for Michael Morpurgo's "Poppy Field" (2018), a book about how WW1 poet John McCray's "In Flanders Fields" inspired the use of the poppy as an armistice symbol. Today is 100th anniversary of the first Armistice. pic.twitter.com/zSw7iP8Ghk

— James Mayhew is on a break 🎨 (@mrjamesmayhew) November 11, 2018

Morpurgo said: “I very much wanted my story to play a small part in the celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in the June of 2022.

“There was another Queen Elizabeth some time ago, a cousin 14-times removed to our own Queen. A great writer, Edmund Spenser, once wrote a long poem about her that he called The Faerie Queene.

“My story is not a poem, and not long, but, as you will discover, it is also about a fairy queen – although spelt differently.

“Michael Foreman and I should like to dedicate this book to Her Majesty The Queen, in gratitude, in affection and in admiration.”

Foreman said: “It is an honour to be part of Michael Morpurgo’s tribute to Her Majesty The Queen.

“While researching the long, colourful thread of her life, through a changing world, it has been impressed upon me the part she has played in the tapestry of all our lives.”

There Once Is A Queen by Michael Morpurgo will be published by HarperCollins Children’s Book on May 12.