Oona heads into the jungle with Will on her back , and Will gradually learns to communicate with her and finds fruit and water enabling him to survive in the wild . He also remembers a long-ago lesson from his father , who taught him how to catch fish from a stream using his clothing as a net . However , Will struggles with biting insects and leeches . One day , there is a standoff between Oona and a tiger , and Will remembers the poem " The Tyger " by William Blake . Saying this poem out loud gives Will courage . This courage is needed when Will is kidnapped by hunters , and finds out about threats to the rainforest through trade in exotic pets , animal furs , palm oil and timber . Later Will escapes with the help of a chef , Kaya who frees them by cutting open their wooden cage , leaving Will and the orangutans to run back into the wild . They wander the rainforest until they run into Oona . Will is over joyed to find Oona and climbs on her back with the orangutans . It is an emotional and inspirational story about a boy who found his place in the world , The wild ! The idea for this book came from a newspaper article about Amber Owen , who was saved from the 2004 tsunami by an elephant whom she was riding at the time . Morpurgo had not traced Owen until 2016 , and invited her and her family to the opening night in London . Morpurgo was also influenced by '' The Jungle Book '' and " The Elephant 's Child " , his two favourite stories from his childhood
2004 tsunami
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
Running Wild (novel)