We splash onto the shore and start running. Bullets whistle and punch into the beach. Wrecked landing craft lie on their side. Waves wash up dead bodies floating face down. I stare. Training doesn't prepare you for this.

Tommy Doran is an infantryman in the British Army. It's June 1944 and he is about to take part in the biggest invasion in history: D-Day. Will he and his best mate Joe get through the German defences and make it home alive?

This first-person narrative follows them through the anticipation and boredom of waiting to boarding ship in bad weather at Southampton, the Channel crossing, to the fear and tumult of landing on Gold Beach.

Factual pages contextualise the narrative, giving readers the bigger picture. Archive photography and newly commissioned illustration bring the historical events described to life.

The book will be available in time for the 60th anniversary commemorations of D-Day in June 2014.

*Help Key Stage 3 students move from Level 3a to Level 4c in reading.
*Support comprehension with the age-appropriate illustrations and the historical photographs to take readers inside the soldiers' experience.
*Encourage shared and guided reading using the ready-made tasks and discussion points on the activity pages at the back of the book.
* Suitable for Key Stage 3 students with a reading age of 9 years and 6 months.

This book is part of a book series called Read On .

This book is suitable for Key Stage 3. KS3 covers school years 7, 8 and 9, and ages 12-14 years. A key stage is any of the fixed stages into which the national curriculum is divided, each having its own prescribed course of study. At the end of each stage, pupils are required to complete standard assessment tasks. This book is part of a reading scheme, meaning that it is a book aimed at children who are learning to read. This book is part of a HiLo reading scheme, combining high interest relative to the required reading skill. This reading book uses the phonics method. This approach concentrates on teaching children how to map between sounds and spellings, allowing them to decode written words into their constituent sounds. Phonics skill thus involves being able to split the written word 'cat' into the phonemes /k/, /a/, /t/, and to map from letter 'c' to phoneme /k/, from letter 'a' to phoneme /ae/ and from letter 't' to phoneme /t/. Decoding skill is useful when reading unfamiliar words which use regular spelling sequences.

There are 56 pages in this book. This book was published 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers .

Natalie Packer is an educational consultant who has worked as a Senior Adviser for the National Strategies, supporting the implementation of the Achievement for All project to improve outcomes for students with SEN, and as a Local Authority Adviser for Special Educational Needs and School Improvement. She has developed and delivered national training on a wide range of issues, including SEN, teaching and learning, and involving parents in education. She has primary headship experience and was a SENCO for a number of years. Alan and Robbie Gibbons are father and son. Together they have written three stories for the Read On series.