They say cats have nine lives. Well, perhaps some of the most adventurous humans have nine, too.
Eric Jones has climbed the world’s most dangerous mountains – and even jumped off one of them!
He has flown over Everest in a balloon, and named a mountain in South America in honour of Welsh history.
Eric’s story is about overcoming our fears and reaching our goals. It helps us understand the world and the beauty it contains.
The book features a special bonus chapter on Snowdon's connections to the first successful expedition to climb Everest.
 
All the books in the Wales and the World set include chapter questions, a subject-specific poem, a timeline and a glossary, to assist learning and understanding.
Learning has never been so much fun – or this exciting!
 
Teacher feedback:
 
"I used some Chapters from this book to help me plan a Humanities topic on Pioneers for Progression Step 3. Eric’s story provides the perfect link between the pioneers who left Wales for Patagonia in a bid to ‘save’ the Welsh language which they believed was under threat. Their story, their relationship with the indigenous people gave so much rich content and hits so many of the Statements of What Matters for humanities as well as strands of the Health and Wellbeing. Climbing and exploring the mountains of the world or statistics on Welsh speakers from Census records provides rich cross-curricular numeracy and so many opportunities for oracy. 
We had a class debate on risk-taking. We agreed on the question - is it ok for someone to risk their life to explore new lands? And followed up with what risks it is ok for nine-year-olds to take?
Considering the core principle of being ethically informed citizens the story of migration is as relevant today. As well as Conscience Alley opportunities on whether they would have gone with those Welsh Pioneers on the Mimosa we also wrote a balanced argument on whether the Welsh pioneers were any different to the English settlers in Wales who they had blamed for the reduction of Welsh speakers. This topic was really rich in learning opportunities.
By using Eric’s story I wasn’t restrained by one period of time but was able to compare changing attitudes over several hundred years and the scope for comparing and contrasting exploration, pioneers and the impact of the early pioneers such as Magellan on the indigenous tribes in South America proved 
We finished the topic by allowing learners to present to the class on who they believed was the greatest pioneer. They chose people we had studied but also had independently researched to find their own. Eric won the title of the Greatest Pioneer with the most votes. His story had left its mark with one ALN pupil describing this Welshman as worthy of a new adjective - “awesomest”."