Flamingo Boy, Hardcover/Michael Morpurgo

Household favourite Michael Morpurgo follows the success of }Private Peaceful{ and }War Horse{ with this novel set in a town in the South of France during World War Two. A young autistic boy enjoys the routines of life in the town, helping to heal animals and riding the carousel, until the town is occupied with German soldiers who damage the carousel and harm the town's distinctive flamingo population. The individual kindness, however, of one of the German soldiers - a carpenter with a boy of his own back home - could restore order to the boy's crumbling world.