How Does A Lighthouse Work?

This beautiful, atmospheric non-fiction book is a celebration of lighthouses, their coastal history and the engineering that goes into making them work. The approach is beautifully simple and will immediately draw in young readers. A child – with a passion for the subject – is on a school trip to visit a lighthouse, and poses a set of questions, one per double page spread. They start with what is a lighthouse for, what will I find at a lighthouse station, what is it like on the dop deck. Text with the answers is clear, and builds on information delivered on the previous page, while striking colour illustrations in blue, red and yellow not only provide additional insight – eg the cross section of a lighthouse enabling us to see inside – but convey too the singular beauty of these extraordinary buildings and their wild settings. Answers to questions such as how does the light shine so far, what did people do before lighthouses, combine history and geography with STEM, and the final pages invite children to design their own lighthouse, walking them through the decisions that neem do be made, reinforcing what has been learned but emphasising again the special nature of lighthouses.  With wide appeal and an approach that will make rereading a pleasure, this is a truly illuminating information book.