Escape with a Beautiful Book (Escape from Pompeii - Christina Balit)

Member Name: misswilmotsghost

Product:	Escape from Pompeii - Christina Balit
Date:	31/01/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: appealling looking, complements a time in history covered by primary school pupils

Disadvantages: none

Christina Balit is an illustrator of beautiful children's books, two of her others have been nominated for the prestigious Kate Greenaway medal. This one tells the story of how Tranio and his friend Livia escape from the volcanic eruption at Pompeii: it is a glorious book with stylised illustrations in richly antique colours. They vividly evoke the style of frescoes from Pompeii and other ancient sites.

It's a shame that too often these days, books with illustrations can be "written off" as picture books for younger children. Apart from this being a wonderful book to own in its own right, it would also be a great addition in a primary classroom when they are studying the Romans. Lots of teachers choose to read Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries to their classes and this would be a fabulous complement to that, letting children see what happened, and the story is enhanced by the illustrations to make a rich sensory experience. Valuable also, for those older children whose literacy levels are perhaps a bit lower. There's a map at the end to show where the events took place.

Amazon has this book for sale in paperback for £5.24, and an earlier form of this review is also on the Amazon site.

Summary: enjoyable, educational and richly illustrated - what more do you want?