Town Is by the Sea

Product Information

This expansive, airy book is full of the sights, sounds and smells of summer. 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? As he keeps reminding us, deep beneath it is his father, digging for coal. 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). There are plenty of islands to explore for visitors to Rovinj. Photograph: William Manning/Getty Images 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? My Place by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, 20th Anniversary edition published 2009 by Walker Books Australia

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. Written by Joanne Schwartz and delightfully illustrated by Sydney Smith, Town is by the Sea is a quiet book that will stay with readers long after they have closed it. Israel Book Review

Trains run to Cádiz from London via Paris, Perpignan (sleeper) and Madrid. See loco2.com for details.

Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly. For something more traditional, try the The Old Inn , a five-minute walk from De Grote Post towards the beach. There are just two dishes on the menu at this delightful restaurant with walls covered in antique posters of Ostend: steak (€23) or fish (catch of the day, price varies). Annie started this business in 1969 and still reigns supreme in the kitchen. Her husband René brings the hand-cut fries and homemade mayonnaise to your table. Desserts (€7) are local classics dame blanche (ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce) or pancake mikado (my favourite). 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. Ferries run to Cagliari from Civitavecchia (near Rome), Naples and Palermo. There are also ferries to other Sardinian ports from Genoa, Livorno, Toulon and Marseille. Observant readers will spot more than they’re being told. There’s a problem in the tunnel: will Father come home? The tension is subtle and swiftly relieved, but the shadows cast by this book are real. Our narrator and his friend will go down the pit, just like their fathers and grandfathers before them, because that’s the way it goes... and once the dazzling summer light has faded we’re left to wonder what becomes of them.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.