Tag Archives: disaster

100 Most Dangerous Things on the Planet

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This fact-filled book describes the top dangerous things that can harm (or, more likely, kill) you. Each one is detailed on a single page with photos, risk and survival ratings, “What to do” section and text boxes with extra fun facts. The book is divided into two sections – natural dangers and human dangers. Natural dangers is then further divided by the type of danger (natural disasters, dangerous weather, lost in the wild and dangerous animals).

This book is attractively laid out and will, no doubt, be of great interest to its target audience. I am concerned that there is nothing noted about where the information comes from and how the risk and survival rates are determined. While it is packed with information about what to do in case one of these awful things occurs, it leaves out a pretty significant piece of information – where did they find out all this stuff? That being said, I don’t plan to go anywhere near a pyroclastic flow, which has a survival rating of 10%. I’ll take a dingo attack (95% survival rating) over that any day. Why take chances?

Surviving a Shipwreck: the Titanic

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Surviving a Shipwreck: the Titanic is a narrative nonfiction following the timeline of the sinking of the Titanic, from its launch and sinking in 1912 to its discovery in 1985. The book begins with a hook on the first page – a single paragraph detailing the moments after the ship struck the iceberg. Text is interspersed with historical captioned photos to move the reader through the maiden voyage and sinking as well as the rescue and eventual changes in law (United States and Great Britain) concerning safety measures so that this type of disaster would never occur again.

Typical nonfiction features – table of contents, index, glossary, source notes and so forth are present in this book. An interesting diagram of the sinking itself, from hitting the iceberg to the ship breaking in half and sinking in two pieces is included. Another interesting addition is the short biography of Margaret Brown, who tirelessly aided her fellow passengers as they loaded lifeboats, went on board the Carpathia and later when they got to New York. One last page of note is the guide to surviving disasters with steps to take to keep safe in the unlikely event of a ship sinking.

Pair this book with some of the newer fictional stories about the Titanic to give students more history about the event. Surviving a Shipwreck: the Titanic will be a riveting read for your upper elementary readers and a nice addition to the nonfiction about the event.

Crab Cake

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Crab Cake, written by the author of Accident! starts out innocently enough. The sea creatures are doing what sea creatures normally do – “Seahorse pretends to be seaweed” and “Puffer fish puffs up” and “Crab bakes cakes’ – what?? Yes, crab is a different sort of sea creature and bakes lovely cakes. This comes in handy when disaster strikes their lovely undersea world. A boat comes by and dumps a huge amount of trash into their home. Everything turns dark and they all freeze! Then, crab does what crab does best – he bakes a cake. The other sea creatures come out of hiding and begin to relax, brainstorming ideas as they eat his yummy creation. They are united in their resolve and each works with the others to clean up the terrible mess. They deposit the pile of garbage on the dock with a sign that reads “Come get your junk!’. And, life turns back to normal. The sea is clean and bright, the animals are doing what they do and crab is baking cakes (with some help from his friends!).

This story is so multifaceted in its message! While it is a lovely little narrative about a crab that doesn’t act like his fellow sea creatures, it is also a powerful reminder that individuals can come together to solve a big problem and highlights that individuals can all contribute in some way to the solution. In this case, “Snapper shoves”, “Clownfish rolls”, “Clam encourages” and all the other sea creatures help in their own ways to clean up their home and send a message to the humans above. This book is also a reminder that we shouldn’t stand by and let the others destroy the earth. All of this begins with a crab that bakes!

The last page has some great links to a variety of ocean environmental websites that are appropriate for kids. Read this book during Earth Day or any day that you are empowering your students to work together to benefit the world!

Examining Bridge Collapses

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Right off the bat I am intrigued by this book and it’s theme of engineering. This book is all about exploring why bridges collapse and how different types of bridges are better than others in certain situations. I personally like this book, the way they explain things make engineering sound fun and exciting. I would definitely suggest this book to a civil engineer needing a quick refresh on bridge terms and vocabulary. Also if you are in middle school wanting to try engineering this would be perfect to get you started. This book is an informational book and I would have to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

-Z.L.

Examining Airplane Crashes

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Examining Airplane Crashes, By: Andrew Hatch, tells the reader how plane crashes occur, and how they can be prevented. The author also includes many of the biggest plane crashes in history. The book really thoroughly explained how plane crashes occur and also how the pilots can prevent the crashes. I really thought the book was great, it was really informative. The author seemed to explain everything that could cause a plane crash. If you are afraid of going on airplanes because you think there is a high chance they will crash, this book will help you get over that fear. More than 8.7 million flights took off in 2013, and only one of them crashed in the United States.

-Z.S.