Story of the Titanic is a wonderful book for those children who like to learn by looking rather than reading. The story is in the pictures, ably drawn by Steve Noon - who, we are told, built a model of the Titanic to help him research the technical aspects of the ship.

Similar in style to that of Stephen Biesty, Noon’s basic approach is to place a cross-section plan of the ship across a double-page spread, and to pack it with small-scale detail. So we see the first-class passengers in the gym or the Palm Court, the third-class dining below, and the firemen, trimmers and greasers in bed, or even sometimes (also a favourite Biesty device) on the loo.

The text, by Eric Kentley (who, in 1995, dived down to the wreck itself as part of research for the National Maritime Museum), is kept to a spare and unemotional minimum. Supplementary facts frame each large picture, and there are things to find and characters to follow through the story.

At a quick glance, the book appears to be lacking in drama, with the dreaded iceberg making only a very modest appearance on page 19. (“Why don’t they show the ship crashing into the iceberg?” my nine-year-old wanted to know.) But look more closely, and the drama is in the detail: the passenger attempting to swim through a sea of armchairs, the tiny life-jacketed figures clinging on for dear life, or dropping into the sea, as the ship’s stern rises horrifyingly out of the water.