Saturday, January 25, 2020

I Survived The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912: A Graphix Book



I Survived The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912: A Graphix Book 
Georgia Ball (Adaptor), Lauren Tarshis, Scott Dawson (Illustrations)
February 4th 2020 by Graphix
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

George Calder is traveling on the Titanic with his widowed aunt and his younger sister. There are a lot of opportunities for adventure on board, when he can manage to sneak away from his cabin. When he hears that there is a mummy in the luggage area, he sneaks down in the dead of night, only to meet a creepy man with a scar who threatens him. When they are about to open the mummy case, the ship lurches and George manages to escape. Ship personnel tell his aunt to get everyone dressed and ready to go to the deck of the ship; she doesn't want to, but reluctantly agrees. George's sister is not in her bed, and George feels she must have heard him slip out and followed him. He and his aunt finally locate her, but she has gotten down into steerage to see Enzo, an Italian boy with whom she has made friends. George manages to make it to the deck with Enzo, his father, and his aunt and sister, but there is no room on the life boat for George. He and the father try to stick together, jumping off the ship before it capsizes and hanging onto doors to float in the cold sea before being rescued by the Carpathia.
Strengths: This has an excellent text to picture ratio for elementary students, and is sort of like gummy vitamins; it gets history into students who might not normally pick up historical fiction. Tarshis can tell a fast-paced, We Were There type story very effectively, and this is a good adaptation.
Weaknesses: The I Survived books are short enough as they are, so this seems sort of unnecessary.
What I really think: I guess the graphic novel is helpful in that it shows what the historical era looks like. I'll have to buy these, and they will be wildly popular, since both the I Survived books and graphic novels are constantly checked out.
Ms. Yingling

No comments:

Post a Comment