Read the poem aloud together. It is printed whole in the book: four verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1885. Take turns reading a verse each. When you meet an old word, stop and work it out from the words around it before you look it up.

Before chapter 3. Why was the shadow "fast asleep in bed"?

The answer. Because it was before sunrise. With no sun, there is no sun shadow to see. The poem says it the way a child might feel it, as if the shadow were lazy, but it is also true. Shadows are long when the sun is low and short when it is high.

Shadow walk. Go outside early, at midday and in the late afternoon. Stand in the same place and look at your shadow each time.

Pause to think. Inkling named the poem too soon. Has a first guess about a book ever been wrong for you?

The grown-up layer. Working out a word from the words around it is called using context clues. ReadQuest's Pith does it.