BIRMINGHAM, England, June 12 (UPI) -- Author Michael Murpurgo has become the first three-time winner of Britain's Red House children's book award, organizers said.
Young readers voted Murpurgo's new novel "Shadow," a story about a boy in Afghanistan who makes friends with a bomb-sniffing dog, their favorite book of the year.
Murpurgo, 67, won previously for "Kensuke's Kingdom" and "Private Peaceful," called "Shadow" a difficulty story to tell, the BBC said Sunday.
"I was writing about a contemporary conflict," Murpurgo said. "I wrote 'Shadow,' as I do with all my books, because I felt so passionately about the subject -- the detention centres and the suffering of war."
The Federation of Children's Book Groups sponsors the awards, which were handed out in Birmingham. Other winners were Alex Scarrow and the team of Alison Edgson and Angela McAllister.
