This lovely, light-filled picturebook has hidden depths and is well worth reading and exploring with your class. this book is a stunning snapshot of a life...And while this is for the reader a rather haunting tale, it also highlights the beauty and happiness that can be found around us even when life can seem harsh. The melodic text reads beautifully and the colour palette is stunning Smith's work on conveying sunlight on the water is some of the most striking I have ever encountered. Library Mice Told as a ‘day in the life’ of a boy living in a 1950’s coastal mining town, this expansive, airy book is full of the sights and smells of summer. From my house, I can see the sea, says our young narrator, and so can we - sparkling in the sunshine beyond the family’s kitchen window. Light streams through the open door and silhouetted against it is Father, off to join the other miners on their way to work. The boy spends his day roaming the clifftops, running errands for his mother and playing with friends. He doesn’t forget the sea, though - how could he? Deep beneath it, his father is digging for coal. This is the perfect title for deeper thinking dialogue. The illustrations provide plenty of open questions as to what the story is about. On the surface, it seems to be a day in the life of a miner’s son. The story’s rhythmic, poetic text mirrors the rhythm of a day and the rhythm of the tides and these cyclical patterns punctuated with the refrain: “it goes like this…” could be used as a model for children’s writing. On first reading, it actually reminded me of John Prater’s Once Upon a Time. Each day when the boy wakes he can hear seagulls, a barking dog, a car door, flowers rustling in the wind. The first thing he sees is the sea and he reflects on the knowledge that his father is already at work deep under the ocean working in the coal mine.

Flat and compact, Volos is easy to explore by bicycle. Join the locals freewheeling along the seaside esplanade to the city beaches that begin at Anavros. Or push on to the lush Pelion peninsula, which crooks its finger into the glassy sweep of the Pagasitikos Gulf. The tree- and taverna-lined beaches on Pelion’s south side are sheltered from the winds. Those nearest to town — Gatzea, Kala Nera, Boufa, Lefokastro — can get crowded, especially at weekends. Young guns and high rollers head to the beach bars poking out of the pine trees at Afissos. Families prefer sandy Milina, where you can take a boat trip to the tiny islands of Alatas and Prasouda, or all the way to snoozy Trikeri, adrift off Pelion’s southern tip. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. The Buoni e Cattivi has five rooms (from €85 B&B) and three self-catering apartments sleeping four (from €80 a night, in houses nearby. Set around an elegant interior courtyard, Hostel Marina has spacious dorms with single beds (from €20) and no bunks. Or float off to sleep on a nine-metre motorboat moored in the small marina south of Poetto (en suite cabin from €85).It's a positive book though, beautiful and poetic. The illustrations are wonderful, we loved the fluid drawing of a dog running, we enjoyed the Lowry inspired scenes of the mines and the colours and effects of the light on the sea are very good. This is meant to be set in the 50's but we found no clues in the clothes or the home to show us that so we were confused at first as it looks as if it is modern day. Perhaps this was because this was a poor family, no 50's design had crept in but to us they looked contemporary. I suspect a small house was not such an indication of poverty in those times as it is now but the illustration of the kitchen is so spacious, the size of most people's entire downstairs, only part of the kitchen window is visible but I counted 21 large panes of glass, which is confusing given this is meant to be a poor family. Soundworlds is not just a podcast. It’s an audio stage for diverse stories told in extraordinary ways. It’s a place for an exciting new form of audio drama that we call sonic theatre. There are wordless image sequences in this book ( Dad arriving home; the boys swinging…) Look at them carefully and talk about what is shown, and how, and what’s left out. Use to inspire wordless image sequences of your own.

This is a beautiful book and would make a perfect book for boys to read with their fathers and especially meaningful to anyone who has relatives who have worked in the mines. Mountainous Pelion has its wild side, too. From Volos, it’s a winding drive over wooded ridges and through stone hamlets to the Aegean coastline, where the road drops down to wide-open beaches and bright green coves hemmed in by cliffs. Children don’t need to know this book is set in the 1950’s or understand coalmining to enjoy it – it’s full of life and disarmingly accessible. But there are many layers here, together with some hidden depths, making this a richly satisfying starting point for creative exploration. A story, simply told, with beautifully evocative illustrations: this book is pure delight. It is one which when shared and talked about will become a firm favourite. The School LibrarianTrains run to Cádiz from London via Paris, Perpignan (sleeper) and Madrid. See loco2.com for details. Do you have questions you’d like to ask the boy on the roof? What’s he doing there? What could he be thinking? What kind of story could this be? And suddenly there is Cagliari: a naked town rising steep, steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky …” So wrote DH Lawrence in 1921 on sailing to Sardinia. Almost 100 years later the city that made the writer “think of Jerusalem” is just as impressive.

Volos railway station is close to the harbour and served by local trains from Larissa (38 miles away), which is on the main Athens-Thessaloniki line. From Thessaloniki there are trains to Belgrade, Sofia and beyond (the Belgrade route is only open this year until 16 September, see seat61.com). EasyJet flies to Volos (Nea Anchialos airport, 40km away) twice a week.There are plenty of islands to explore for visitors to Rovinj. Photograph: William Manning/Getty Images

But probing deeper we can ponder upon why the boy is looking out to sea and explore the emotions he may be feeling. Further discussion could explore the talking points around following a family trade and the benefits and disadvantages of living in the same place your whole life. The day’s end brings night and dreams of bright summer days and the dark underground. Does the final sentiment , “One day it will be my turn.” “In my town, that’s the way it goes.” suggest an inevitability that the boy will do what his father does and that is just the way it is. Is he condemned to the life of a miner? Or does it invite readers to question whether things must remain the same, just because they have always been so? In this Soundworlds production, we follow Davey as he describes his daily routine: from waking up with the sea sparkling outside his window, to playing with his friends, buying groceries for his mother, and visiting his grandfather’s grave. Throughout the day, his thoughts keep returning to his father, working in the coal mines deep beneath the town. Told as a day in the life of a boy living in a 1950s coastal mining town, the book’s appealingly direct text is complemented by Sydney Smith’s striking illustrations which won him this year’s Kate Greenaway medal.A young Latine boy finally gets to rescue the dog of his dreams, but training can be a challenge in two languages.