By Lauren Tarshis
A ten-year-old boy is aboard the Titanic the night it hits the iceberg, and he has to survive the sinking of the most famous ship in the world.
George Calder is ten, sailing home on the grandest ship ever built, and he's bored enough to go sneaking where he shouldn't. Then the Titanic hits the iceberg, and the whole story turns into one long held breath: the deck tilting, the freezing water rising, too few lifeboats, and George scrambling to get himself and the people he loves to safety before the ship goes down. Lauren Tarshis takes a giant, famous disaster and shrinks it to one boy's night, so a child feels the danger up close but always through George's eyes. It's a thriller with a real event underneath it, and it moves like one.
For a child who thinks reading is dull, this is the antidote: short chapters that nearly all end on a cliff, real danger, and a true story pulling them along. It reads fast and easy but feels big and grown-up, which is a powerful combination for a reluctant reader over the summer, they get a page-turner and the pride of reading 'a history book.' There's a whole numbered series of these disasters, so a child who tears through the Titanic can go straight to sharks, the Titanic's rescuers, hurricanes, whatever grabs them, and keep the streak alive.