Review by Ian Keogh

The destruction of Pompeii is a disaster unlikely to be duplicated today, but 79 years after the Christian era began there were neither warning systems, nor means of rapid escape, so when the volcanic Mount Versuvius erupted, the city of Pompeii was engulfed. The reassuring title of the I Survived series, though, indicates to young readers that the death toll wasn’t absolute.

As with all volumes in the series, Georgia Ball is given no cover credit for adapting a novel written by Lauren Tarshis placing a child at the centre of terrifying events. As there’s not a great deal to say about volcano erupting, the story instead focusses on what Roman life was like at the time, using young slave boy Marcus as the guide to the preparations for the impending visit of a dignitary. At the same time, what we’d now recognise as Earth tremors are considered warnings from angered gods.

An early incident shows just how much a slave’s life is worth in the eyes of an owner, and Tarshis via Ball ramps up the emotional tension by briefly reuniting Marcus with his father. Marcus determining to rescue him prompts the plot until Vesuvius erupts.

Dave Shephard’s illustration matches most of the series to date in being absolutely clear for children, but not greatly memorable. That’s not just down to any possible editorial demands for simplicity, as Marcus thinks about Roman and Greek myths, yet Shephard doesn’t bring out the visual dynamism of sequences such as that of the Trojan horse.

Tarshis researches well, including scenes of sheep having suffocated due to the sulphurous air prior to the actual eruption, and cranks up the tension inventively via the character-based twists. As ever, it’s painless education. Next up is I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919.