{My thoughts} – Barry and his family are part of the many that ended up being trapped in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina had hit. They had tried to evacuate the city but the roads were nearly impassable and then his sister ended up getting really sick in the car. Their parents decided it would be best to go back to their house and hope that his sister would feel better and they’d be able to leave later.

That night the storm hit. It got so bad that the lever broke and the town started to quickly flood. Barry had fallen asleep on the couch and something had woke him. He screamed and his dad helped him to the stairs. Eventually the end up in their attic and his dad has to bust through the roof with an axe.

Once they are up their something happens and Barry ends up in the water. A majority of the book covers the time he spends separated from his family. The fact that he and his family aren’t together makes things really hard on him, but he finds reasons and ways to stay strong.

This book is a really nice addition to the series. As an individual that has been effected by the flooding although not nearly as serious as what had happened in New Orleans, I can understand how Barry felt. I can understand and visualize the aftermath of the storm described within the pages of this book.

I look forward to reading more books in this series in the near future. ( )

Read this with the summer book club at school. Fast paced, full of facts while still developing the characters. high interest/lower reading level. 2nd grade through 5th grade would still enjoy. My boys love this series! ( )

Series: I Survived.

Barry and his family try to evacuate from their New Orleans home when they hear how bad Hurricane Katrina is predicted to be, but circumstances stop them from doing so ... and soon they will learn firsthand just how awful this storm is.

So for many years now, I've been seeing these "I Survive" books fly off the shelves at libraries and have wondered what makes them so great that kids love them immensely. I decided to download several e-book titles to evaluate them, selecting some books with events I knew a decent amount about already, events I knew a little bit about already, and events I really didn't know anything about previously. This book fits into the first category.

Perhaps because I lived through Katrina (thankfully, somewhere away from the storm and safe but I did see tons of news coverage before, during, and after the storm), this book wasn't as thrilling as I expected this series would be; I knew what to expect from the Superdome overcrowding to the levees breaking. I found myself having a hard time getting into it at first and I'm not quite sure why. The chapters are short and try to end on cliff-hanger type moments, which worked really well in the latter part of the book. But the beginning was a little too much laying the scene and felt a lot like any other standard mass market children's book introducing the family, a best friend, and a bullying neighbor. Once the story got going, I was little more into it but the story did seem too 'fresh' for me still. Of course, for the target audience, 2005 is before most of them were born so it is likely not going to have that affect on them.

Back matter includes an author's note questioning the failure of leadership that made Katrina such a disaster as well as a few quick facts about the storm. Illustrations throughout the book are not strictly necessary but they are good addition. This title features a cast of almost all Black characters, which is good from a diversity standpoint given that I don't believe that's true for most of the other books in the series. Some references to jazz and other cultural gems of New Orleans are also a nice touch. ( )

These books are short so I’ve been reading them quickly. Brought tears to my eyes. I can’t even imagine what those poor people went through. ( )