Kevin Cunningham is an author and travel writer. He has written about Arthur Ashe, Condoleezza Rice, and Joseph Stalin. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Gr 3-4-Each book highlights four historically significant disasters in chronological order. Earthquakes focuses on the 1906 San Francisco quake and ends with the one that devastated Haiti in 2010. Cunningham mentions tsunamis in Newfoundland in 1929 and Thailand in 2004. Tornadoes covers areas hit in Fargo, ND, in 1957 that led to the development of the Fujita scale. It mentions the Super Outbreak in the United States in 1974, when 148 tornadoes touched down in 13 states and shows that these forces can strike anywhere. Hurricanes spotlights Galveston, TX, in 1900; Darwin, Australia, in 1974; New Orleans in 2005; and Bangladesh in 2007. Quotes from child survivors are taken from books, newspaper articles, and interviews to create a story of the events leading up to, during, and after the disaster. Survival suggestions are limited: constructing stronger buildings in earthquake-prone areas; implementing better early warning systems for tsunamis; going into a basement or small room when a tornado warning is issued; and building seawalls, raising the level of the land, and protecting wetlands to help reduce hurricane damage. Number-crunching data shows statistics and mathematical information regarding the disasters. Photographs depict the destruction and rebuilding that occurs. Maps indicate areas where these natural disasters struck or those most commonly hit. A variety of fact blocks contains information about the survivors as adults, people and organizations that helped during the recovery, eyewitness accounts, and how the lives of people were impacted. There isn't much of a niche for these volumes; they don't have enough information for reports and they're definitely not for those searching for books on how to survive a disaster.-Sandra Welzenbach, Villarreal Elementary School, San Antonio, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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