Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown
Scholastic Inc. | ISBN 9781338540697 Hardcover
336 Pages | Ages 8 to 12
Scholastic Inc. | ISBN 9781338541007 Ebook
336 Pages | Ages 8 to 12
Ann E. Burg explores the deep class divides and social injustice behind one of America's greatest tragedies.
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889 was a lively, working-class factory city. Above the soot-soaked streets, an elite fishing and hunting club, built on a pristine man-made lake, drew America's wealthiest business barons. Though repeatedly urged to fix the deteriorating dam that held the lake, the club members disregarded the warnings. And when heavy rains came, the dam collapsed and plunged the city into chaos.
On that fateful day, six children found themselves caught in the wreckage.
The chorus of their voices—all inspired by real people—create a gripping portrait of loss and healing. Plumbing themes of class, injustice, deprivation, and the environment, Ann E. Burg summons her prodigious heart and virtuosic poetry to turn one of the deadliest tragedies in our country's history into a transcendent and hopeful work of art.
Raves & reviews:
Praise for Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown:
"Burg ably conducts players and readers through a suite of emotions, from the slightly ruffled normalcy of family and school concerns, through the terror of the flood, and onto the frustration and outrage of working-class plaintiffs bringing well-heeled defendants to court. Burg uses identities of actual Johnstowners and, in a chillingly effective literary play, switches the names of deceased characters to their morgue tag numbers and grays out the font as they continue to speak after death... This is a worthy companion to similarly voiced novels." — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books