DISASTERS

Few topics are more intrinsically interesting to young readers than disasters. Guiberson casts her net wide to examine ten natural and man-made disasters chronologically from smallpox in colonial America to Hurricane Katrina. The 20-page chapters, broken into subsections, describe the events with quotations from contemporary accounts and plenty of grim details. Photographs, drawings and diagrams, all usefully captioned, extend the lively text. The author analyzes causes of the disasters and factors that exacerbated them, such as building on landfill in 1906 San Francisco. In most chapters, she explores steps that could prevent or reduce future catastrophes, although only a brief introduction ties the chapters together. A Notes section highlights major sources for each chapter, without specific references, followed by an extensive bibliography but no further reading suggestions as such. Good for pleasure reading and as a starting point for research. (index, not seen) (Nonfiction. 11-14)