Under the Sea Stories: Book review

Under the Sea Stories by Stuart Lightman

When we were little, our mum used to tell my sister and me made up stories at bedtime. I can’t actually remember what any of them were about but I remember that I loved hearing them. The fact that they weren’t read from a book meant you truly didn’t know what would happen next because the next sentence wasn’t yet decided.

That kind of magic was what Stuart Lightman’s children experienced too as he told the tales of Peter and his adventures under the sea. With the use of a glass bottom boat taking him out to sea, he makes friends with a flying fish, who in turn introduces him to all the other underwater sea creatures, all who have their own stories to tell. Between a swordfish duel, a whale race, a fish who only speaks in rhyme, and his own diving bell adventure deep into the ocean, Peter has a most extraordinary adventure that is both fascinating and captivating.

As his children grew up, Stuart made a written record of his tales and so Under the Sea Stories was created!

Under the Sea Stories by Stuart Lightman is available online in hardback and paperback, priced from £7.99.

We received a copy of the book to read together and the boys both enjoyed hearing – and reading for themselves about – Peter’s adventures. This is a great bedtime book to read together and a wonderful tool for fueling children’s own imagination too. We found some great resources online to supplement our night time reading of Under the Sea Stories and so we created a mini project based on sea creatures. An excellent opportunity to build on the interest the boys had in the topic.

Continuing the Under the Sea theme, I found a lovely shark craft on the Twinkl website and a themed maths workbook.

As we made our way through the workbook we talked about how some of the creatures had featured in the story book and considered what we now know about each of them. There were some sea creatures we still didn’t know much about so we will look at those again.
There was also the ‘simple 3D shark’ model which nearly outfoxed me if I’m honest, but I put that down to the lack of sleep I had last night rather than the craft activity itself being too taxing!

There are lots of ways we could extend our Under the Sea mini project, and it was very simply prompted by a new book. Books really do bring endless possibilities for learning.