Survivors: Children of the Halifax Explosion

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.

Of the nearly 2000 people who perished in Halifax on December 6, 1917,
more than 500 were children. Hundreds more were horribly burned,
crippled, or orphaned by the explosion. This is a book about seven
youngsters who survived the disaster. The author met and interviewed
these survivors, who are now senior citizens, while researching another
book, Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery.
What emerges is more than just a “we were there” documentary of one
short moment in history. Kitz sketches a vivid portrait of children’s
lives in wartime Halifax before and after the explosion. It was an
everyday world of large, closely knit families, school, church, and
young minds trying to comprehend the adult war in faraway Europe.
Without warning, this safe, all-encompassing world suddenly vanished.
For many children, it was the end of one life and the beginning of
another.

Although the explosion occurred more than 70 years ago, Kitz manages to
retain a sense of contemporary events in her text. Young readers can
easily see their own world reflected in these pages, and the folly of
both modern war and eco-disaster come to mind. This is an important new
viewpoint on a significant event in Canada’s history.