Book Review: I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor (boy, single mom, Japanese family next door)

I Survived The Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941, by Lauren Tarshis (Scholastic Books, 2011, 112 pages, $4.99, ages 7-10, grades 2-5), number four in a series of at least 19 historical disaster books for kids. Fiction books in a non-fiction settings. Review by Skye Anderson.

 What Would You Do? 

You keep coming back to a few stories in history, time and time again, because they are unforgettably scary-exciting or full of real-life heroes. Maybe the Kennedy assassination or maybe 911. Maybe you have lived through one of these and remember it well or maybe your grandfather did and you like to listen to his tales.

Today seems pretty tame compared to disasters of yesterday like Pearl Harbor or the eruption of Mt. St. Helens

or World War II or maybe even the more recent but geographically specific Hurricane Katrina.

What would you have done if you had lived in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906? What if you barely felt the earth shaking or what if you had to flee your downtown apartment and then became homeless? Did your family manage to stay together?

What Would You Remember?

I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor is a basic story we all remember (part of, at least) but what if you had been a small boy living with your mother, a nurse, and next door to a Japanese family whose 3-year-old boy worshipped you? (And, yes, there is a 'puppy' in this story.) Chances are that you would remember more if it happened to you or someone you knew, even if in a book.

Author Lauren Tarshis has written a series of exciting fiction books around girls and boys and events that actually happened in history. It is so much more memorable if you read about people rather than just historical facts.

And chances are you will want more of this series than just Pearl Harbor! And you, dear parents, will want to read them first!