andipants's review against another edition
2.0
There were a lot of interesting pieces of information here, but there were also a lot of tangents that got pretty far into the weeds. I definitely found my eyes glazing over at the pages-long detailed descriptions of meteorological phenomena; a basic explanation would be welcome, but this went rather beyond layman's terms at some points. And I really cannot express how much I don't care about the random political squabbles of people thousands of miles away who were only tangentially related to the event, and yet they are allotted several pages here. And for all the extensive background given on some of the immigrant families (right down to detailed descriptions of the villages they'd left in Europe a decade or more before), the characters often ran together in my mind, and I kept having to flip back to the index to find where they were mentioned before and remind myself who was who. The excessive choppiness of the narrative didn't help — we jump around from character to character for no apparent reason other than to build artificial tension. I honestly think the stories of the individual characters and groups would have been more effective as a series of discrete vignettes, rather than chopped up and tossed together as they were.
It wasn't a bad book, by any means — its descriptions of the blizzard itself and the dangers people faced were very good. But it could have been executed so much better than it was.
[Also, and this is my own personal pet peeve, but when he quotes from The Long Winter, it's clear he's not actually read the book, because he misidentifies Mary Power as Laura's sister Mary, even though she's referred to as "Mary Power" in the very section he quotes. Come on, dude.]
It wasn't a bad book, by any means — its descriptions of the blizzard itself and the dangers people faced were very good. But it could have been executed so much better than it was.
[Also, and this is my own personal pet peeve, but when he quotes from The Long Winter, it's clear he's not actually read the book, because he misidentifies Mary Power as Laura's sister Mary, even though she's referred to as "Mary Power" in the very section he quotes. Come on, dude.]
malachi_oneill's review against another edition
4.0
Read Blizzard! next.
Same storm, a few weeks later as it hit the U.S. Eastern seaboard.
Facing the storm in the relatively empty prarie does sound much more terrifying.
The logistics of it hitting an ill-prepared major city sounds terrible.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1067556.Blizzard_?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=heYFvWHDYw&rank=1
Same storm, a few weeks later as it hit the U.S. Eastern seaboard.
Facing the storm in the relatively empty prarie does sound much more terrifying.
The logistics of it hitting an ill-prepared major city sounds terrible.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1067556.Blizzard_?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=heYFvWHDYw&rank=1
rlk7m's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 A perfect combination of weather nerdery and harrowing personal stories.
colleenvb3's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
heathersbike's review against another edition
This. Was. Awful.
Not the writing. Not the reading. The writing seemed fine. The reading was very smooth, like a newscaster. But the information was so awful. I get this is a terrible topic. But the author seemed to revel in the horror. To relish each terror that happened. So awful. And then I spun off into Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell whose books I normally enjoy but after this just seemed like more horror. I had to switch to a fluffy romance to cleanse my poor brain.
Not the writing. Not the reading. The writing seemed fine. The reading was very smooth, like a newscaster. But the information was so awful. I get this is a terrible topic. But the author seemed to revel in the horror. To relish each terror that happened. So awful. And then I spun off into Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell whose books I normally enjoy but after this just seemed like more horror. I had to switch to a fluffy romance to cleanse my poor brain.
melissahoward's review against another edition
4.0
This is a compelling story. I have two warnings for potential readers.
He made a mistake in his reference to a discussion that Laura Ingalls Wilder records in her book "The Long Winter." He attributes a school yard conversation to Laura's sister Mary at a time when Mary no longer went to school because of her blindness. The conversation was between Laura and her friend Mary Power.
Do not read this book before bedtime if you are prone to dreams about anything disturbing that you read or watch.
He made a mistake in his reference to a discussion that Laura Ingalls Wilder records in her book "The Long Winter." He attributes a school yard conversation to Laura's sister Mary at a time when Mary no longer went to school because of her blindness. The conversation was between Laura and her friend Mary Power.
Do not read this book before bedtime if you are prone to dreams about anything disturbing that you read or watch.
pamiverson's review against another edition
3.0
Grim account of a terrible blizzard in the 1880’s, before weather forcasting and the ability to know those forecasts were possible. Lots of sad stories. To me the most interesting part was learning about the systems in place at the time, and current understanding of weather and predictions.
kaulyjo's review against another edition
4.0
As a big fan of Erik Larson's brand of historical storytelling, I was encouraged by the recommendation provided by him on the back cover of "The Children's Blizzard." Like Larson, Laskin does a great job of weaving the emotional narrative with the facts surrounding the blizzard of 1888, and the combination is a story more than worth the telling.
On a clear January morning, the weather dawns beautifully. What had been a frigid winter had suddenly earned a respite from Mother Nature, and it was so nice that as the young children of the plains set off for school, many did so with only minimal clothing needed. When the temperature plummeted, and the sky opened up with a fury that no one had seen before, that decision proved to be fateful for many of those same children, helping the storm earn its nickname.
Growing up in Nebraska, I faced some brutal winters growing up, but clearly it was nothing like what happened in 1888. Modern conveniences aside, the landscape is vastly different than it was then, even if it's still considered barren by most of the nation. I had heard the story of this blizzard before, especially the story of the school teacher who tied a rope around her children in order to lead them to safety (though claims of the rope are disputed). Those handed down stories, however, miss the emotional impact that Laskin's retelling provides.
My one criticism of the book is, strangely enough, one of the same criticisms that I had with Larson's "Isaac's Storm." The meteorological details, mixed with some political squabbling of the day, are not as clear as I would have liked them to be. It's difficult to put technical terms into a good narrative, and I found myself skimming those sections a little more than I would have liked. Overall though, this minor hiccup doesn't detract from the book enough to scar it.
On a clear January morning, the weather dawns beautifully. What had been a frigid winter had suddenly earned a respite from Mother Nature, and it was so nice that as the young children of the plains set off for school, many did so with only minimal clothing needed. When the temperature plummeted, and the sky opened up with a fury that no one had seen before, that decision proved to be fateful for many of those same children, helping the storm earn its nickname.
Growing up in Nebraska, I faced some brutal winters growing up, but clearly it was nothing like what happened in 1888. Modern conveniences aside, the landscape is vastly different than it was then, even if it's still considered barren by most of the nation. I had heard the story of this blizzard before, especially the story of the school teacher who tied a rope around her children in order to lead them to safety (though claims of the rope are disputed). Those handed down stories, however, miss the emotional impact that Laskin's retelling provides.
My one criticism of the book is, strangely enough, one of the same criticisms that I had with Larson's "Isaac's Storm." The meteorological details, mixed with some political squabbling of the day, are not as clear as I would have liked them to be. It's difficult to put technical terms into a good narrative, and I found myself skimming those sections a little more than I would have liked. Overall though, this minor hiccup doesn't detract from the book enough to scar it.
abeth_parker's review against another edition
4.0
I had never heard of the tragic "Children's Blizzard" until this book popped up as a Goodreads suggestion. This was a well-researched and well-written account of the storm. I skimmed a few sections (my apologies to meteorologists everywhere for not understanding how weather systems develop). But, the personal accounts in the book were really interesting. The loss of human life was catastrophic. I'm sure the economic impact was significant as well.
I'm thankful that we live in a time when weather forecasts can be updated in real time. So many people were caught completely unaware of the danger of the coming storm.
I'm thankful that we live in a time when weather forecasts can be updated in real time. So many people were caught completely unaware of the danger of the coming storm.