'On 10 April 1912, RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on her Maiden voyage to New York. This 'ship of dreams' was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world. It was claimed she was unsinkable. But four days later, when the ship struck an iceberg, the loss of the Titanic and 1,500 passengers would become one of the most infamous maritime disasters in history.
'In this fact-filled retelling of its construction and doomed maiden voyage, David Long brings Titanic's tragic past to life.'
The award winning children's non-fiction author David Long turns his sights onto the most famous (perhaps infamous) ship in history, the Titanic. The odds are even if you don't know a great deal about the ship or what happened to it you'll recognise the name Titanic. It's a story that it seems will never be forgotten, one of the worst disasters at sea, and a true tale about man's hubris and the power of nature.
David Long aims to make the subject accessible for younger readers with this book, which is no easy feat. There have been hundreds of books written on the subject, and just as many documentaries filmed. It's an area that's been poured over so many times it can be hard to know where to start looking into it, what's the best source of information. Long does an incredibly good job at taking all of this information and condensing it down into a quick eighty page read.
Whilst the book is designed for younger readers, and makes things nice and simple to get to grips with, it doesn't dumb things down in any ways. It doesn't seem to feel the need to oversimplify things to the point of being patronising, and just presents the basic information in its simplest terms; which makes it accessible to people of all ages, not just children.
The book goes over the general history of trans-Atlantic travel at the time, explaining how various companies would try to compete with each other for prizes for the fastest crossings, and how the creators of the Titanic chose to go for size and luxury over speed in order to buck this trend. Long outlines how the ship was designed, and the amazing amount of work that went into its creation. With so many stories I'd previously seen around the topic being focused on the actual voyage of the Titanic it was really good to learn about it's construction, and the book included information that I'd never encountered before.
Once the book has gone over the construction of the ship it moves onto the voyage itself, outing the near miss the ship had at the very start of its journey, the stops it made along the way, and the things on board that passengers were able to spend their time doing. Eventually, however, it comes to the point where it has to talk about the terrible event itself. Long does this in a way that doesn't shy away from how awful things were, yet doesn't linger on the horrible details. It makes a point of telling it's young audience that people died, even children, and that this was all avoidable, yet makes sure that we know some good things came from it; hopefully ending the book on a tone that's kind of bittersweet, one that will hopefully not leave younger readers feeling too distressed.
Despite being designed for younger children, as a first port of call for information about the Titanic, the book was really informative for me too, and I found it to have a lot of information that I never learnt when I was being taught this as a kid. This means that whilst it's designed for the younger reader I think it's going to be something that people of every age will enjoy, and will act as a good starting point for those who want to learn more about the Titanic, or just want a brief overview of the event. With so many books available on the topic already this is one that is the perfect starting place to discover more about this tragedy, and is an ideal starter for any child.
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