FArTHER

Product Information

Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.

While I enjoyed reading it myself, I have bought it to share with the children I teach in upper Key Stage 2. A son remembers his father - his dreams of being able to fly as well as spending time together until one day the war takes him away forever.It shows many emotions throughout and if you get into the book its as if you can picture it in your mind. It is beautifully designed with a wealth of detail, conveying dark emotions, storms of war and weather, and a powerful sense of loss and bereavement. The father is far from perfect and gets swept up in his dreams, and even forgets about his son at times. It's a story about family, loss and ambition with many opportunities for prediction, inference and discussion.

There would have to be lots of talk used in the classroom and some drama activities such as hot seating to share thoughts and ideas on the story and to develop understanding. It continues by exploring the text through a range of activities that include explicit grammar teaching, opportunities for shorter written outcomes and book talk.

I found myself asking questions about the images and even making up a little more of the story in my head. I will always remember the day he left, the clothes they gave hm, khaki against the scarlet poppies' and there is a powerful illustration to accompany the powerful mental image. I bought this for my son in law whose parenting of my grandchildren I am very impressed with, I loved the story and the illustrations are memorable. The style of illustration in this book, a mix of artwork, photographs in a collage come together to create a most unusual picture book which explores the relationship between father and son in a particularly poetic and elegant way', Librarymice. It takes a few reads to appreciate how deep and complex the message is, and has lead to a great discussion about the meaning of the text (and we're adults).

The unique illustrations have an almost eerie feel to them, which adds to the intrigue and questions that the story raises - for example, as I read the book I kept wondering why the father wanted to have wings, and what was driving his desire to fly away. A young boy, bewitched by his father's passion to fly; a desperate craving that absorbs his every waking minute, finds himself entranced by the dream. Although it doesn’t contain a lot of text, the words are beautifully woven into the pictures using different fonts and text sizes.Grahame Baker-Smith is a self-taught award-winning illustrator from Oxford who completed his training at Berkshire School of Art. For many books these two points would cause me to only give a single star rating, so the fact I still rate this at 4 stars say something about how good it is. In the classroom, I would not use this book with kindergartners or first grade, but 2nd grade might be an acceptable age. Using photographic collage and illustration, this is the first book that Grahame has both written and illustrated and the results are amazing.