Girls Survive Series Part 11

I enjoyed this one. Cora goes through a lot to survive during the Tri-State Tornado event of 1925. The author did a great job of capturing how terrifying this must have been. 

My main criticism is that the characters felt a little too modern in voice. I didn't feel like this was set in 1925. And I'm mad about the main casualty of the tornado. That didn't have to happen and I hate when authors resort to it, as I consider it weak writing. 

It's theme deja vu. One of the books in the last release dealt with Bloody Sunday, which happened in Selma, Alabama in 1965 during right to vote protests. 

This is set a couple years earlier in Burmingham, but it's the same right to vote topic. Not that this isn't important, but maybe space them out a bit more? The difference here is that the children are the ones doing the protesting and getting arrested, whereas in Selma, it was all ages. The majority of this book is set in the jail, which is different from the first one. 

It's a good book. I just don't think the two voting ones needed to be so close. 

Girls Survive Series Part 10 + Graphic Novels

Another two new Girls Survive books are out, along with their first ever graphic novels. 

Essie's book is set on Bloody Sunday, which was March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama. 

Even though she's young, Essie is a big time protestor, who's already been jailed for the offense multiple times. This time she finds herself in the middle of the most violent protest she's ever witnessed, with the non-violent protestors being beaten, teargassed and hosed down. It's not easy to read all the damage done to Essie, but it's important. It's always been ridiculous in this country what people have had to do just to gain the most basic right to vote. 

Gah, I started writing this post back in August. All the other books and graphic novels were read then, but I just couldn't bring myself to do the Katrina book. Now that the two newest books are out, I made myself pick it up and finally get through it. 

Being a hurricane survivor, this one was very hard to read, but what we dealt with was nothing like what happened with Katrina. The treatment of the disaster was nothing short of despicable, and while our situation wasn't as bad, the government is still basically useless when it comes to helping people who survived natural disasters. 

Claudia's family is her mother, her younger brother and sister who are twins, and her grandfather. My biggest issue with this book is the author's flimsy reason for keeping the family there. The grandfather recently had surgery, yet he's not bedridden and he does fine living in the attic post-hurricane. There is literally no reason the family couldn't have evacuated. The surgery is never even specified. Pretty weak writing. The younger sister Zoe is an obnoxious brat. 

I'll likely never reread this one. 

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in the graphic novel format. They're very thin and for the price, I would have expected a least a little bit longer. The book version seems to tell a lot more story. Still, it's neat to see a historical fiction graphic novel.

Ting's story is set during the flood of the Yangtze back in 1931. I had no idea this had ever happened, so I always love to learn something new. No matter how short the story is, I still learned. 

Spoiler: This actually does end well, which is probably not very realistic.

Still fun to see the ancient world included. 

 

I liked this one, though it went by too fast. Definitely my big complaint about these. They're too damn short. 

I thought I'd like this one least, but it actually is pretty relevant in a still only recently post-Covid society. My favorite after Ting's story.