All by Myself

Suitable for children in Year 1 (age 5), All By Myself is from the Cambridge Reading genre strand Narrative Recounts, a strand which motivates children to explore their personal responses and make links to their own experiences. Each story in this set of nine marks a significant event from someone's childhood. While some of the stories are set in modern Britain, others take place in the 1930s or 1940s in locations as diverse as Hong Kong and Trinidad. In All By Myself, retold by Richard Brown, Tom has a fear of heights - he has to be carried up stairs and over bridges, always with his eyes shut! At five years old he learns to swim and really wants to learn to jump from the diving board. Will he be able to do it by himself?