Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown (Scholastic Gold)
Scholastic Inc. | ISBN 9781338540994 Paperback
352 Pages | Ages 8 to 12
Flooded joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!
Ann E. Burg explores the deep class divides and social injustice behind one of America's greatest tragedies.
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889 was a lively, working-class factory city. Above the soot-soaked streets, an elite fishing and hunting club, built on a pristine man-made lake, drew America's wealthiest business barons. Though repeatedly urged to fix the deteriorating dam that held the lake, the club members disregarded the warnings. And when heavy rains came, the dam collapsed and plunged the city into chaos.
On that fateful day, six children found themselves caught in the wreckage.
The chorus of their voices--all inspired by real people—create a gripping portrait of loss and healing. Plumbing themes of class, injustice, deprivation, and the environment, Ann E. Burg summons her prodigious heart and virtuosic poetry to turn one of the deadliest tragedies in our country's history into a transcendent and hopeful work of art.
Raves & reviews:
Praise for Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown:
* "Stunning, significant and sorrowful, Ann E. Burg's requiem melts history into prose. Brimming with sensory imagery and cadence that breathe life back into the 1889 disaster, this novel in verse serenades readers with multiple, yet personal voices of youth depicting daily life in Johnstown before and after the historic flood. Readers will quickly become connected to real life characters, empathetically curious of their fate. Through significant research and written testimony, Burg provides insight to the aftermath and unearths South Fork Dam's faulty structure and the liability of its prestigious Fishing and Hunting Club. The novel's artistry makes use of faded text to give voice after death to main characters as well as anonymous victims. Budding historians
will be intrigued with new perspectives on prominent figures such as Clara Barton, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay. Highly recommended as a tragically engaging, poetic account of the 1889 disaster, which will leave an impression upon its readers." — School Library Journal, starred review
"Burg ably conducts players and readers through a suite of emotions, from the slightly ruffled normalcy of family and school concerns, through the terror of the flood, and onto the frustration and outrage of working-class plaintiffs bringing well-heeled defendants to court. Burg uses identities of actual Johnstowners and, in a chillingly effective literary play, switches the names of deceased characters to their morgue tag numbers and grays out the font as they continue to speak after death... This is a worthy companion to similarly voiced novels." — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Awards and Praise for All the Broken Pieces:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults
IRA Notable Book for a Global Society
Jefferson Cup award winner
Booklist Editors' Choice
ALA Popular Paperback for Young Adults
* "[A] stirring debut novel... will make readers want to rush to the end and then return to the beginning again to make connections between past, present, friends and enemies." — Booklist, starred review