This author is really filling a niche in children's historical literature. I can't wait to see if she comes out with more books along this line.

Such a brilliant representation of Pompeii for younger children.

Escape From Pompeii is about 25 pages long and has a paragraph or two per page. This story is obviously about the big volcanic eruption and destruction of Pompeii. But what is unique about the book, is that it tells the facts about that event through story of a boy named Tranio. he is a typical citizen of the town and the story points out that earth movement was a part everyday culture to them and it was not taken seriously. There is a sweet girl, Livia, that he is introduced as his friend and they stick together throughout the book. The two of them go throughout their typical days, practicing theater and baking, which shows the reader what a typical young citizen would be doing on a daily basis. Then the eruption happens and the two of them, by chance, escape on a boat only to return years later to commemorate their lost lives. The story line is quite vivid and the illustrations, which seem to be done in some type of colored pencil, enhance it extremely. The culture, environment, and structures of Pompeii and very eloquently depicted through the illustration, providing an added insight to what Pompeii looked like. The vocabulary is a little bit harder so it would either need to be read out loud or be meant for slightly older children, with words like "looming," "tremors," "wriggled," and "pumice."

Overall, this book is a great balance between educational and entertaining. It would be great to have in the classroom when learning about other countries and cultures and what their histories look like. One of the best ways to get through to a child is to tell them a personal story of somebody in the situation than to just tell them about the situation as a whole. The book would be a good asset to a classroom.

Fantastic book to help immerse children into writing about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., lots of great opportunities for cross-curricular links as children were enquiring about the amphitheater page and the outfits illustrated. The image of the eruption was particularly powerful and my class of Yr 4s spent ages looking at it and even managed to link it with their knowledge of the pyroclastic flows!

Read this as part of Year 4 literacy class. Great for grammar session - lots of adjectives, adverbials and overall great writing. Ties in well with the Romans topic.

Very enjoyable story. A shame that the roman numerals weren't correct in the illustrations (i think) but I love it and can't wait for the term to start!

A picture book that I have particularly enjoyed this year is Escape from Pompeii, Christian Balit. This short picture book details the story of the city of Pompeii through the eyes of a young boy named Tranio. The book features some beautiful illustrations and some fantastic descriptive passages that make it a great book for children to analyse.
The story introduces what it was like to live in the city of Pompeii during this time and then moves on to detail the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the city. This book would be a great way to introduce the topics of The Romans or Volcanoes. There is a lot to pull apart with this picture book and the focus can range from something literacy based (grammar, story structure, characterisation, word choices) or topical (Romans, geography).
There are many applications for this particular novel:
English:
Writing - Descriptive writing, setting description, diary entry from the point of view of one of the characters, newspaper article
Reading – predictions, inferring meaning from text, comprehension
Drama activities – freeze frames, whoosh
PSHE:
Morals – what would you do? Save yourself/ go back for others?
Science:
Layers of the Earth, tectonic plates
History:
The Romans – exploring the everyday life of the Romans, the historical event of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Geography:
Tectonic plates, volcanoes

I
ts really intresting

Read with my Year 3 class.

Fabulous illustrations to this book and it gave a great sense of the unexpectedness of the eruption of Vesuvius, also the total devastation. Tranio and Livia act as eye-witnesses to the eruption. Plenty of correct detail about the eruption.

This historical fiction picture book is about Pompeii and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Beautiful illustration and well-written text show young readers what it might have been like to live in this ancient Roman city when the giant mountain surprisingly erupted.

Unique illustrations with an interesting re-telling of the exciting and tragic story of Pompeii.