From there to a cliff-hanging end of the book, Julius and his friends do their best to please Emperor Hadrian and survive run-ins with the gladiators.

I think the history wasn't very realistic because only very few parts were true, but it did make me want to find out more about what actually happened and I wanted to read more by this author; he is so funny! These pictures have to be read along side the text, they make up part of the story and something about this style of book is just so appealing and I really enjoy it. On a visit to the Tomb of Cleopatra, Felix is unable to resist a rather lovely looking treasure for his rock collection… He pockets the jewel and immediately a curse falls upon the group.I don’t know if there were specific animals that the Romans fought or not, so this book has encouraged me to try to find out more about the Romans.

This is because he was brave, kind and helpful and whenever one of the animals in the book needed help or comforting, Cornelius would be there in a jiff! When I read the book it made me feel lucky that I didn't live in ancient Rome because there were fierce battles including animals and humans.

The thing in the story I did not enjoy before the animals sailed to Britannia was the language because whilst the author described the animals lives, the words were not very imaginative. However I shouldn’t have been worried, this book had me laughing from the first pages ad it’s fun to see how Julius, a zebra from Africa, ends up battling Roman gladiators. This is the fourth book in the fabulously funny Pigsticks and Haroldseries, which would particularly appeal to reluctant readers. Sometimes humour doesn't get translated well (like with Disc World for instance), but in this one the translator managed to translate and hold the humour. The one thing I didn't like about the book was the people in the story were ok with animals talking!