Disaster in the Indian Ocean, Tsunami 2004

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-The strength of this work is the inclusion of survivors' stories based on personal interviews during the author's visit to Indonesia in January 2005. The accounts include a British girl who recognized the coming tsunami from her studies and warned her family; an Indonesian woman who lost her baby; a vacationing nurse who helped secure vaccinations and other medical supplies to show her appreciation for the people who saved her son from the water; and a woman who lost a total of 40 relatives, including 4 of her 6 children and her husband. "FYInfo" pages explain the factual side of the tsunami, U.S.-Muslim relations, the threat posed by the area's separatist movements, the delivery of water purifiers, and the risk of tsunamis in the United States. Color photos and graphics are often small. Still, the book excels for its depiction of the personal impact of the destruction, supplementing Gail B. Stewart's Catastrophe in Southern Asia: The Tsunami of 2004 (Gale, 2005), which is more thorough but less personal.-Jeffrey A. French, Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library, Willowick, OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.