Disaster! Rev. ed.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

The history of every nation is pockmarked with stories of deadly floods,
fires, explosions, collisions, and maritime tragedies. The author of
this book has documented three-dozen disasters, both natural and
human-made, that have occurred in Canada over the past century.

The book is divided into seven chapters of uneven length. The first
chapter deals solely with the Halifax explosion of 1917, Canada’s
greatest disaster in terms of loss of human life and property. The
subsequent six chapters include “Canada’s Own Titanic Stories”
(shipwrecks), “Fire!” (urban and rural), “When the Earth Breaks”
(earthquakes, rock slides, mining disasters), “Nature’s Fury”
(hurricanes, floods, and cyclones), “Disaster on the Move” (train
and plane wrecks and acts of terrorism), and “Recent Disasters”
(Swiss Air Flight 111, the Red River Flood, and the Great Ice Storm of
1997). Fans of twisted metal and smoking ruins will appreciate the
dozens of period photographs that accompany Schmidt’s text, but
fortunately there are no lurid pictures to upset young or sensitive
readers.

The content suffers from two minor flaws. First, there is no index and
Schmidt’s subchapter titles (e.g., “Another Terrible Mistake,”
“Fresh Disaster”) often give no clue about which disaster the text
is describing. This makes it hard for readers to recall specific
incidents through previously read material. Second, although Schmidt’s
research is competent, his writing style is often awkward. The result is
a book that is always informative, but not always a pleasure to read.
Recommended.