Watch The Butterfly Lion Video

The Butterfly Lion is a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo. It was first published in Great Britain by Collins publishers in 1996. It won the 1996 Smarties book prize. Michael Morpurgo has said that, of those he has written, this is one of his favourite books. Plot summary A young boy runs away from a boarding school in Wiltshire. He meets an old woman, who tells him the story of Bertie and...  MORE

The Butterfly Lion is a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo. It was first published in Great Britain by Collins publishers in 1996. It won the 1996 Smarties book prize. Michael Morpurgo has said that, of those he has written, this is one of his favourite books. Plot summary A young boy runs away from a boarding school in Wiltshire. He meets an old woman, who tells him the story of Bertie and the butterfly lion. When living in Africa, Bertie rescued a white lion cub, but was forced to part with it when he went to boarding school and the lion was sold to a circus. Bertie promises to find the lion one day. At boarding school, he sneaks away and befriends the young Millie. Later, when fighting in France in the First World War, Bertie is reunited with the lion. He marries Millie and brings the lion back to England, where they live happily for many years. When the lion died, Bertie and Millie carved a lion out of the chalk in the hillside in memorial, before Bertie died himself. After being told the story, Michael returns to school. He finds a plaque commemorating Bertie's heroic acts in the war, and learns from a teacher that Millie died only a few months after Bertie. Michael goes back to the house, finding it deserted. LESS