The Children's Blizzard (P.S.)
by David Laskin
List Price:
Our Price: $6.28
You Save: $8.71 (58%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.96 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: David LaskinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-11
ISBN: 0060520760
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060520762
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Children's Blizzard (P.S.)
Book Review: When a blizzard was more than simply an inconvenience
Summary: 5 Stars
Knowing the outcome of a disaster doesn't mitigate the drama of the event. That drama lives in the details - the personal stories of those who survived, or didn't survive. That's what grips readers and won't let go as we come to understand the true scope of the tragedy. That is where readers feel empathy for the victims.
David Laskin knows this. He leads readers to understand the hardships endured by the settlers of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota in the 1880s in his 2004 book, "The Children's Blizzard." While describing the everyday challenges of pioneer life in sod houses on open prairies, Laskin digs deeply into the heart of one of the greatest storms of the century, the Blizzard of 1888. At the start of the book, we know the outcome through the prologue. From there, Laskin tells of specific families who immigrated to these plains and we begin to fear for these people. This is the story of a storm, how it came to be, and why it was so deadly.
Like a trap set for an unsuspecting victim, Thursday, January 12, 1888, dawned unseasonably warm after a long cold spell, tempting families to venture out to tend their stock, bring in hay or simply enjoy a breath of fresh air. It was so warm, many children left their coats, mittens and hats behind as they set out for school, encumbered only with lunch pails. Early schoolhouses were often built outside of town, in anticipation of the town's outward growth. Sparse and poorly constructed, the schoolhouse provided scant shelter from driving snowstorms. By 10:30 that morning, the Groton School, in the Dakota Territory, filled with children, was under siege. At the school window, the children were mesmerized as a "wall of shattered crystals slammed into the school." When the storm hit this small school, one of many, it changed the lives hundreds of prairie families in the space of a few hours.
Laskin takes us beyond the storm itself into the early science of weather forecasting, connecting the dots of the disaster. From our contemporary vantage point, it's easy to cope with, even enjoy our occasional blizzards. We have warning of their arrival and can stock up, circle in with family, and wait it out in relative comfort. Weather forecasting was a young science in 1888, and relied on accurate information transmitted down the line from outposts of the newly established Army Signal Corps. Weather forecasting, exacerbated by military politics, conflicting business interests and individual egos, was an unreliable and inexact process. There was virtually no warning to the people who lived in this region. One minute it was frighteningly balmy; the next it was an ice blizzard that could topple a grown man.
Laskin's research is meticulous with his sources listed and expanded in the last section of the book. He draws from fiction, personal history, and scientific records to tell the history of this blizzard. He takes us into the minds of the children as they blindly seek shelter in temperatures that freeze human flesh in 10 minutes. He details the effects of hypothermia by drawing on the experiences of historical and modern survivors to imagine how it might have been for children in the blizzard that day. Evidence tells us they clung each other, the oldest carrying the youngest. No one had adequate clothing. They quickly become disoriented by snow that enveloped them in a whirlwind of freezing ice. They huddled in snowdrifts, haystacks or gullies. Some survived; many died slowly.
Allie Green, a boy at the time of the blizzard described the onset of the blizzard this way: "We could see the blizzard coming across Spirit lake. It was just as still as could be. We saw it cut off the trees like it was white roll coming. It hit with a 60 mile an hour wind. It had snowed the night before about two or three inches. It just sucked up that snow into the air and nearly smothered you."
Imagine yourself as the young school teacher, alone with your charges (some only a few years younger than you) in a one-room schoolhouse, a mile or two from the nearest farmhouse. Would you keep the children with you, knowing your fuel will soon be spent and you will be trapped without food or warmth? Or would you send the children home believing they could surely make it before the storm builds to full capacity? Teachers all over the prairie on that day struggled with these decisions. The outcomes were often the product of pure chance or luck.
Now, with the benefit of science and technology, we look at blizzards as an inconvenience, not a life-threatening event. Laskin's account of this blizzard serves to remind us of how far we have come in our ongoing battle with the elements. It also reminds us not to be too smug, too secure in our belief that we can always win battles with nature. He honors the sacrifices of these pioneers with this book and adds to our understanding and respect of those who came before us.
Summary of The Children's Blizzard (P.S.)
Thousands of impoverished Northern European immigrants were promised that the prairie offered "land, freedom, and hope." The disastrous blizzard of 1888 revealed that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled, and America?s heartland would never be the same.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.19th Century Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in 19th Century Books
Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (Galaxy Books)by John William Ward
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1962-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Oregon Trail (Oxford World's Classics)by Francis Parkman Jr.
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.56
Price in other shops:
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipationby David W. Blight Ph. D.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2007-11-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Audio; Published: 2003-11-10; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $1.07
Price in other shops:
The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Loreby David Dary
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-02-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.30
Price in other shops:
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Textby Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Arnold Douglas, Harold Holzer
Harpercollins; Published: 1993-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.79
The War With Spain in 1898 (The Macmillan Wars of the United States)by David F. Trask
Free Pr; Published: 1981-06; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Old Westby Mike Flanagan
Alpha; Published: 1999-07-13; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $63.64
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star Stateby Randolph B. Campbell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2004-02-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.00
Price in other shops:
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library)by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.66
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in Historyby Erik Larson
Vintage; Published: 2000-07-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.28
Price in other shops:
Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)by Homer Hickam
Delta; Published: 2000-01-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.87
Price in other shops:
Dear America: Letters Home from VietnamW. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2002-05-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Storyby Timothy B. Tyson
Broadway; Published: 2005-05-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Bread Givers: A Novelby Anzia Yezierska
Persea; Published: 2003-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.03
Price in other shops:
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920sby Frederick Lewis Allen
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2000-07-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.84
Price in other shops:
We Is Got Him: The Kidnapping that Changed Americaby Carrie Hagen
Overlook Hardcover; Published: 2011-08-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.00
Price in other shops:
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowlby Timothy Egan
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Blizzard!: The Storm That Changed Americaby Jim Murphy
Scholastic Paperbacks; Published: 2006-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowlby Timothy Egan
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: