Morpurgo, M. (2012). War Horse. The Red Green & Blue Co Ltd. (Original work published 1982).
Morpurgo’s enhanced e-book, War Horse (2012), developed by The Red Green & Blue Co Ltd., is historical fiction set in and around World War 1. The text is told from the perspective of a horse named Joey, who travels from rural England to the battlefields of France, experiencing both sides of the war. First published in print in 1982, this text isn’t digital-born, but with interactive features that enhance the original narrative, it is also more than digitized literature. I’ll expand the definition of digital literature to encompass literature that is print-born, but reworked with multimodal elements that deepen the reader’s understanding of a story. War Horse includes themes of friendship through adversity, courage, and the power and horrors of war. The digital text would be ideal to support the HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) curriculum in Years 4-6. Eight selection criteria will be applied for this review, adapted from Kluver (as cited in Kucirkova, 2018), the University of Stavanger (2019), and Walsh (2013). The criteria: literary merit, aesthetic quality, representation, digital enhancements and extras, access, navigation, security and advertising, and authorship, relate to digital literature for primary school children. As this text is evaluated as a resource to support learning, the four pillars of learning – cognitively active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015) – will also be considered.
The enhanced app of War Horse performs well in terms of security and advertising, and authorship. Morpurgo, former Children’s Laureate, and all producers and contributors to the app are clearly attributed. The e-book is safe and appropriate for children, and free from advertising and in-app purchases; the developer, The Red Green & Blue Co Ltd, does not collect any user data from the app. Unfortunately, access is limited to users of iOS, requiring iPadOS 12.0 or later, and costs $7.99. Consequently, even though many primary schools recommend Apple devices for their BYO device programs, a negative aspect of the enhanced app is in relation to the access criteria, due to the exclusive platform and expense. On a positive note regarding access, the audio-visual enhancements enable the text to be read by a variety of ability levels. The app includes a synchronised and highlighted narration feature, which supports readers with developing literacy skills (Kucirkova, 2018, p.19).
War Horse performs exceptionally well with regards to literary merit, representation, and aesthetic quality. Morpurgo’s narrative is an example of quality literature, with extended vocabulary specific to the historical context, skilfully written in the first person. With regards to representation, the narrative depicts characters from various cultural backgrounds, including German and Welsh, without negative stereotypes or caricatures. War Horse involves an engaging plot filled with action and tension, and character development that promotes empathy for animals. The content of the story is upsetting, with violence, war, and death central themes, which requires parents and educators to engage in dialogic reading with their children. Dialogic reading – a conversation about content during shared reading – is a core component of the four pillars of learning, and is necessary when reading print and digital texts (Hassinger-Das et al., 2020).
The narrative is enriched by the accurate historical information, supported by multimodal visuals, enabled through the app. The original watercolour illustrations by François Place, skilfully support the text. The overall aesthetics and layout of the enhanced app are visually appealing and well designed, demonstrating how older literary texts for children can be successfully renewed for contemporary audiences, immersed in a digital and visual culture. Visually rich narratives are a continuing trend in publishing for children, reflecting this visual culture (Short, 2018, p.289). These enhanced aesthetics contribute to the engagement and active ‘minds-on’ pillars of optimal learning environments.
The War Horse enhanced app successfully utilises digital enhancements and extras in a sophisticated and seamless way. This digital functioning is further supported by a smooth and intuitive navigation and interface. Separate chapters are easily accessed through scrolling across the homepage, with numbered illustrations from each chapter the hyperlinked pathway to the text. The multimodal app extras – a musical performance, interactive timeline, and videos of interviews with historical experts – are all easily located from the homepage. As discussed earlier, the app includes an audiobook, with synchronised sentence-by-sentence highlighting, with narration by the author. This audio-visual synchrony is an enhancement which supports, rather than distracts young readers’ attention, and thus promotes story comprehension (Kucirkova, 2018, p.19; Roskos et al., 2014, p.5). This is a key requirement of digital enhancements in digital literature for children.
An example of quality digital literature for children, the War Horse enhanced e-book successfully integrates story content, technical, and artistic aspects to enhance the reading experience. The multimodal extras add detailed depth to the historical context, supporting students to be engaged, to have active ‘minds-on’ learning, and to make meaningful connections with their existing knowledge and experiences. These are three of the pillars for learning (Hassinger-Das et al., 2020; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). Importantly, the fourth pillar – being socially interactive – will require educators to tie everything together; engaging with the students and the digital text.
References
Hassinger-Das, B., Brennan, S., Dore, R.A., Golinkoff, R.M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2020). Children and Screens. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2(1), 69-92.
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J.M., Golinkoff, R.M., Gray, J.H., Robb, M.B., & Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting education in ‘educational’ apps: Lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615569721
Kucirkova, N. (2018) How and Why to Read and Create Children’s Digital Books: A Guide for Primary Practitioners. UCL Press.
Roskos, K., Burstein, K., Shang, Y., & Gray, E. (2014). Young children’s engagement with e-books at school: Does device matter? SAGE Open, Jan-Mar, 1-9.
Short, K. (2018). What’s trending in children’s literature and why it matters. Language Arts, 95(5), 287-298.
Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment. In L. McDonald, A literature companion for teachers (pp. 181-185). Primary English Teaching Association.
