Scholastic Discover More: Hurricane Katrina by Sean Callery (review)

Adults contemplating the violence of nature and systemic failures among government relief efforts at this tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina may be apt to overlook the fact that primary and middle-graders hadn’t been born at the time of the event. They do, however, have access to fictional and anecdotal retellings of the disaster, and this brief overview may be of assistance in helping them quickly establish some of the main facts—from geographic vulnerabilities of the region, to the infrastructure that inhibited mass evacuation, to the architectural conventions that contributed to home destruction, to the formal and impromptu rescue efforts that were hailed as at once heroic and tragically insufficient. Packed with color photographs and accompanying insets and annotations, the format seems at first glance to be chaotic, but limited topics per spread and overall organization of “Coming Storm,” “Landfall,” and “Aftermath” make the presentation reasonably easy to follow. The book largely avoids the political fallout of the storm and remains distinctly nonpartisan. This quick cram course will draw young readers fascinated by disaster as well as historical fiction fans (yes, many will regard this as an “historical” event) looking for background for novels such as Rodman Philbrick’s Zane and the Hurricane (BCCB 2/14).