Natural Disasters

The 1930s in America will be remembered for twin disasters-the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. This book documents this tumultuous period, beginning with the 1929 stock market crash and continuing with the severe drought in the Midwest, chronicling the everyday struggle for survival by those who lost everything, as well as the mass exodus westward to California on Route 66.
96 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Great Depression, Poverty, Drought

As fighting closes in on the village where Tiger's parents are aid workers, the three of them and native guide set out on a difficult journey to safety.
192 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Survival, Refugees, Drought

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
240 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  Great Depression, Drought

Sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall. When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.
87 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Mothers, Wild West Pioneers, Drought

Dylan's Scout troop goes camping in Halape, a remote spot below the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. That night an earthquake rocks the camp, and then a wave rushes in, sweeping everyone and everything before it. The next hours are an amazing story of survival and the true meaning of leadership.
208 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Survival, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes

Eight-year-old Henry and nine-year-old Chin love to read about heroes in popular "penny dreadful" novels, until they both experience real courage while trying to survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
128 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Earthquakes

When an earthquake creates a tsunami while thirteen-year-old Kyle is babysitting his sister during a family vacation at a Pacific Coast resort, he tries to save himself, his sister, and a boy who has bullied him for years.
160 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Boy Bullies

Violet's paralyzing fear of the San Francisco earthquakes changes when her family renovates an old building. An aftershock dislodges a letter addressed in 1906 to Baby V, and Violet is certain the disturbing letter is intended for her.
288 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Earthquakes, Ghosts, Sisters

A novelization of twenty-two-year-old photographer Edith Irvine's experiences in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, as seen through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Daisy, a fictitious traveling companion.
224 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  Earthquakes

A true account of Chicago's Great Fire of 1871.
144 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Fires, 19th Century

When Tracy, her brother, and the new animal care volunteer at the Jefferson Science Center travel by boat to feed a dog stranded by flooding, their dangerous adventures give them new perspectives on themselves and on each other.
128 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Floods

As they wait out a tornado in their storm cellar, a family listens to their farmhand tell stories about the dog that was blown into his life by another tornado when he was a boy.
64 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Dogs, Tornadoes

Dylan's Scout troop goes camping in Halape, a remote spot below the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. That night an earthquake rocks the camp, and then a wave rushes in, sweeping everyone and everything before it. The next hours are an amazing story of survival and the true meaning of leadership.
208 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Survival, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes

The inspiring true story of two great friends, a baby hippo named Owen and a 130-yr-old giant tortoise named Mzee. When Owen was stranded after the 2004 tsunami, villagers in Kenya worked tirelessly to rescue him. Then, to everyone's amazement, the motherless hippo and the elderly tortoise adopted each other. Now they are inseparable, swimming, eating, and playing together.
40 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Best Friends, Tsunamis

When an earthquake creates a tsunami while thirteen-year-old Kyle is babysitting his sister during a family vacation at a Pacific Coast resort, he tries to save himself, his sister, and a boy who has bullied him for years.
160 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Boy Bullies

The story of a Japanese boy who must face life after escaping the tidal wave that destroyed his family and village.
64 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Tsunamis

Dylan's Scout troop goes camping in Halape, a remote spot below the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. That night an earthquake rocks the camp, and then a wave rushes in, sweeping everyone and everything before it. The next hours are an amazing story of survival and the true meaning of leadership.
208 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Survival, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes

The lives of two girls, one a slave and the other her beautiful master, change forever when Mt. Vesuvius erupts.
160 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

This book shows the destruction of Pompeii by the volcano Mount Vesuvius, the rediscovery of the ruins nearly 1,700 years later, and what daily life was like in this prosperous Roman town in the year 79 A.D. before the explosion.
40 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

Volcano researcher Donna O'Meara's photographs and accounts of treacherous journeys get readers up close and personal with some of the world's most dangerous volcanoes.
56 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Volcanoes

On August 24, A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius began to erupt. Within twenty-four hours, the entire city of Pompeii had been utterly annihilated. It was not until hundreds of years later that archaeological excavations began to unearth what had been buried under layers of volcanic rubble.
48 pages, Grades 4-8
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

The Roman Empire's richest citizens are relaxing without a care, but their world is about to be destroyed, and only one man is worried. The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. Springs are failing for the first time in generations, and by the time Marcus discovers why, it is too late.
368 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

It is two hundred thousand years ago. A group of children are cut off from their Kin when they are driven from their Good Place by violent strangers. While searching for a new Good Place, they face the desert, a volcano, a canyon flood, man-eating lions, and other Kin they have never seen before.
640 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Prehistoric Times, Survival, Volcanoes

When an "Instant Commuter" transports him to Mt. Saint Helens during its eruption in 1980, twelve-year-old Warren cannot get himself back to his own time.
136 pages, Grade 3-5
related subjects:  Time Travel, Volcanoes

Part of the Zack Files series. Zack and his father go to Hawai'i where Zack has an unfortunate encounter with an angry volcano goddess.
57 pages, Grade 3
related subjects:  Funny, Volcanoes

A young Pompeiian boy becomes apprenticed to a physician as the volcano Vesuvius smoulders in the background.
Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes