Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na. Even the name still sends shiv­ers of fear through those who remem­ber the scenes of ter­ri­ble dev­as­ta­tion and loss dur­ing that heart­break­ing time. In this emo­tion-packed yet fac­tu­al­ly based fic­tion chap­ter book, Gail Langer Kar­wos­ki tells the sto­ry of two chil­dren caught up in the hor­ror of those days and nights, one a pre-bar mitz­vah boy, and the oth­er, a slight­ly younger black girl from the 9th ward, the area hard­est hit by the storm and the least assist­ed by ear­ly orga­nized aid. Through a com­bi­na­tion of cir­cum­stances, these two young peo­ple, who would not ordi­nar­i­ly have crossed paths, are togeth­er when the storm hits hard­est. Not only do they need to sur­vive nature’s fury, they are also respon­si­ble for a seri­ous­ly ill woman, an injured woman, a beloved pet, and a baby. Resource­ful­ness, resilience, a pos­i­tive atti­tude, and moral strength are need­ed. Courage is not always found eas­i­ly and Langer doesn’t make these chil­dren into arti­fi­cial heroes. They are human, fright­ened chil­dren, who nev­er­the­less do what is need­ed when called upon. The descrip­tions feel real­is­tic and the sto­ry feels authen­tic and, although dra­mat­ic, not over­ly dra­ma­tized. The art is lim­it­ed to black and white sketch­es of the pro­tag­o­nists and larg­er black and white draw­ings at the start of each chap­ter sym­bol­iz­ing an impor­tant aspect of the chapter’s con­tent. The illus­tra­tion is ef­fectively han­dled. The sto­ry ends with the bar mitz­vah of the young man and the read­er can see how much he has grown and how deeply he has changed because of what he has expe­ri­enced dur­ing and after the storm. This is well-told his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, use­ful in or out of a class­room, and is rec­om­mend­ed for ages 9 – 12.