Rescues!: Ten Dramatic Stories of Life-Saving Heroics.

Deborah Dowson is a Canaadian children’s librarian in North Wales,
Pennsylvania.

The 10 stories presented in this collection offer the reader a variety of examples of heroic rescues from different times in history at different locations throughout the world. Some, such as the rockslide at Turtle Mountain in 1903 or the shipwreck on Lake Erie in 1854, describe the efforts of ordinary people responding to an immediate and sudden crisis. Others, like the stranded mountain climbers on the Eiger in 1957 or the sunken submarine near New Hampshire in 1939, called for planned rescues by experienced and highly skilled rescue teams using specialized equipment. Sometimes it is the heroic effort of a single individual, such as Captain Mbaye Diagne in Rwanda in 1994, that individuals owe their lives to.

As the author’s introduction puts forward, the circumstances of each story are different, but all involve heroes who risk their lives to save the lives of strangers (or in one case, animals). The author invites the reader to view the stories of rescue from an intellectual perspective, seeing how political and social issues such as race, nationality, philosophy, or personal greed influence how the rescues are undertaken. The stories are told in a straightforward and informational style. The scope of the collection necessitates brevity, and for this reason some stories get bogged down in relating the historic facts, yet on the whole there is enough personal detail to involve the reader in an exciting and suspenseful description of these dramatic rescues from history. Recommended.