This beautifully illustrated book is all about a boy and his friend who luckily escape Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted.

This book’s language is lovely in the way that it tells the story of what Ancient Rome was like based on the evidence in a way that children can understand and visualise in their heads. It also highlights the reasons why so many lives were tragically lost by explaining that there were lots of tremors in the past.

This story, whilst the characters are fictional, is very real. Looking at the illustrations, you can only imagine how horrendous it must have been to narrowly escape as everything and everything you once loved is killed and destroyed - it’s heart wrenching.

I love how it doesn’t have a happy ending as I feel like it would’ve done Pompeii an injustice. What happened was tragic and real and no story can change that.

This book is part of my year 3/4 class’s Invaders and Raiders topic from the Stone Age into the Ancient Romans. It lends itself really nicely to pottery-making, mosaics, history and geography and I can’t wait to see how the children interpret this beautiful but tragic story.