English 4-11 Picture Book Awards

This wonderful illustrated story by Martin Impey details the moving story of one family living in London during World War Two.

The story is told from the perspective of the two children in the family and explains what life was like before the war and then what happens once the war starts. There are specific details included in the book, for example, the exact time the war was announced, what rationing was and what happened during an air raid.

The atmospheric watercolour illustrations complement the story superbly, and put visual storytelling at the centre of the reading experience. The wartime mood set by the nostalgic colour palette combined with the snippets of archived material like letters and broadcasts begin to bring alive a historian’s sense of recreating details of the war from an ageing generation’s living memory and recorded material – an important aspect of historical understanding to grasp for today’s younger readers who are more familiar with the ease of video footage and livestream accounts of news events.

This beautiful and moving book is well researched and rich with detail, making it an excellent addition to any classroom.

‘Into The Volcano’ is an engaging and informative text full of interesting facts for a Key Stage 2 audience. The book supports the National Curriculum objective of understanding the processes that give rise to key physical features of the world – it describes, in a way that the reader will be able to understand, whilst still using ambitious vocabulary, how and where volcanoes are formed, the different types of volcanoes, as well as discussing their positive and negative effects.

We enjoyed the inclusion of myths and legends inspired by real-life volcanoes, details about books and films that feature volcanoes (both real-life and fictional ones); and stories of artists who have chosen volcanoes as their subject.

Throughout the book, there are fascinating ‘Did you know?’ snippets – for example, did you know that scientists believe that the ‘scream heard piercing through nature’ which inspired Edvard Munch’s world-famous painting ‘The Scream’ was in fact the effects of Krakatau exploding?

This volcano-themed children’s book is a fascinating read from start to finish.