Independent Reading Level: Grades 4-5
Awards: None

I picked this book up after realizing that while I had recommended the series to enough kids that I should probably pick one up! This one ended up being a mixed bag. While the style is fantastic for early chapter book readers (short cliff-hanger chapters, occasional illustrations, and well defined references to prior events) the content might be a little triggering for some kids. This book takes place in 1918 and 1919 and while it centers around the molasses flood, it also discusses the 1918 flu pandemic and features the main character, Carmen's father dying from it.

I appreciated the nod to an immigrant story being featured as a first person point of view in the story--Carmen and her father come to America after a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Italy killed her mother--as well as the little story line involving Carmen's best friend Tony who is struggling in school.

Overall would recommend the series but perhaps not this title at the moment.

This is from a series that is very popular in our library. It centers on young people facing disasters, natural and man-made. I was very impressed by the book. It tells an interesting story centered around a young Italian immigrant, Carmen, living in the North End of Boston. The United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA) Company built a shoddy tank holding two million gallons of molasses near the harbor for convenience in receiving and sending shipments of molasses. Built hastily, supervised by a company official with no engineering competence, inadequately tested, it leaked from the beginning. The company painted it brown to make the leaks less obvious. On January 15, 1919, it exploded releasing bolts flying like bullets, shrapnel from the tank, and the two million gallons of molasses into the densely populated area. The molasses, which became so hard that it had to be broken up with pick axes, was worse than a flood of water.

In addition to the story, the author has attached a substantial section of historical notes, photographs from the time, and a suggested reading list for young people, as well as her own bibliography. I am very impressed! ( )

Carmen, an Italian-American immigrant, experiences a number of losses in her young life and the 'icing on the cake' is when a molasses tank in her neighborhood explodes, destroying buildings and drowning people in the sticky mess.

So for many years now, I've been seeing these "I Survive" books fly off the shelves at libraries and have wondered what makes them so great that kids love them immensely. I decided to download several e-book titles to evaluate them, selecting some books with events I knew a decent amount about already, events I knew a little bit about already, and events I really didn't know anything about previously. This book fits into the third category; I had never even heard of this event until I saw this book.

Despite being a complete newbie to the subject, I found myself having a hard time getting into this title at first and I'm not quite sure why. The chapters are short and try to end on cliff-hanger type moments, which worked really well in the latter part of the book. But the beginning was a little slow for some reason, and I can't place my finger on why, especially considering that a lot of other horrific events happen, including Carmen's memories of an earthquake back in Italy and her father coming down with a deadly strain of flu.

That being sad, the characters were likeable and interesting, and the story did get more fascinating as it went on. I felt genuine concern for the characters, even though I know they are fictional ... knowing they were based on real events made it feel more urgent and pressing, even if those events are in the distant past.

Back matter features extensive information about the true facts behind the story. This includes information about how the molasses tank was poorly made, how long clean-up took, and the consequences for the company who owned the tank. The author also uses this space to highlight contextual history such as information about World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic. (I do have a small quibble here that the author tries to explain that origin of the name "Spanish influenza" by saying "It was given that name because the king of Spain was one of the first famous people to die of the illness." Everything I've read indicates the name was given because the Spanish media were not censoring information about the deadly flu strain, unlike in other countries.) All in all, I learned (or had my memory refreshed with) a lot of facts from this section.

Illustrations throughout the book are not strictly necessary but they are fine enough addition. I only question the flags shown at the top of each chapter. One is clearly the flag of the U.S.A. but another is perhaps the flag of Italy? There is a cross in the middle that is not in Italy's flag today, so I'm really not sure what it is supposed to represent and I found myself distracted by this never being addressed or answered in the text. The backmatter includes archival photographs of actual historic events, which was a very nice touch.

This title features a cast of almost all Italian-American immigrants characters, which is good from a diversity standpoint and a jumping off point for the author to talk about immigration in the back matter. However, this led to some clunky writing in the main text, in which the author would use an Italian word in the dialogue and then immediately define it instead of allowing context clues to do the trick and/or including a glossary at the end of the book. Also, at one point she mentions two characters hoping to get 'a cannoli or a biscotti' from a bakery ... but in Italian, the final "i" indicates the word is plural so "a" is the wrong article to use there. It's a very small error but one I see often enough that it feels like nails on a chalkboard for me.

Despite some minor issues here and there, this is a solid title about an unusual event in history that doesn't typically make its way into the history books. ( )

My first in the "I Survived" series, and there's a lot to like here. It opens with a map of Boston Harbor in 1919 - the clearest map of the area I've seen, including in Stephen Puleo's Dark Tide. Chapter one takes place during the tank's explosion, but Chapter two goes back a few months to set context and character. Significant back matter includes historical photographs, a note from the author about the writing of the book, additional historical context (about USIA's ultimate payout to the victims of the flood; the 1918 influenza; how molasses became displaced by sugar), a recipe for gingerbread(!), further reading, and selected bibliography.

See also: American Girl series ( )