I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79

Lauren Tarshis's I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79 is a breathless Roman adventure for 9 year olds about a slave boy who rescues his father from the gladiators the day before Vesuvius erupts.

What happens

Two months ago, eleven-year-old Marcus had a happy life in Rome with his father, Tata, and a kind master who taught Tata everything he knew about science. Then the master died and his horrible nephew Festus took over. Tata was sold within two days, and Marcus was carted off to Pompeii, one of ten slaves in Festus's villa.

So he's lugging Festus's dirty laundry through town when a gladiator parade comes past. At the back, with the men who'll be sent in against the champion tomorrow, is Tata.

What would you do? Marcus thinks about his favourite Greek heroes and how Odysseus got into Troy. Then he puts on one of his master's fine togas (it stinks) and pinches a cobra from a dozing snake charmer. It's a very good scene!

The escape takes them up the green slopes of Vesuvius on a ragged old mare that Marcus names Peg, short for Pegasus. But the streams have dried up, there isn't a bird to be heard and the air among the trees smells rotten.

Tata has spent his life studying nature, and he puts the clues together. The whole mountain is going to explode. And down in Pompeii, everyone's heading off to watch the gladiators.

Your reader gets a real feel for Roman life (honey-baked mice stuffed with raisins, anyone?) alongside what a volcano does before it blows.

It asks a hard question too. Marcus has every reason to hate Pompeii. Should they really go back to warn it?

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Slavery runs all through this story. Marcus is owned, his father was sold and gladiators are made to fight to the death. A man threatens to put Marcus's eye out with a spear. Up on the mountain they find a field of dead sheep. Once the eruption starts, two men are killed and Marcus sees their bodies, and an old woman is trampled by the crowd.

If cruelty is the thing your child takes to heart, that might be too much to read alone. If you've got a reader who loves myths and Romans and wants the gritty version, they'll be hooked.

What to read next

It's book ten in the I Survived series, and every book starts afresh. For another quiet, beautiful mountain that turns out to be a volcano, there's I Survived the Eruption of Mount St Helens, 1980. Eleven-year-old Jess has a scientist on hand too, one who knows exactly what a rotten-egg smell means.