DISASTER, DISASTER, DISASTER

Another of the Triple Title series, here the 13 to 15 year old reader is led from disaster to disaster to disaster, beginning with the 1871 Chicago fire, and ending with the 1957 Grand Canyon airplane collision. This collection of newspaper accounts, many of them written by eye-witness reporters, include the Johnstown (Pennsylvania) flood and fire which killed thousands, the Galveston (Texas) hurricane and flood, the Iroquois Theatre fire, as told by Eddie Foy who escaped it, the General Slocum excursion boat fire on the East River, the Monangah, West Virginia, mine explosion, Lawrence Beesbey's account of the Titanic tragedy, and many more catastrophies. Concluding notes indicate corrective legislation adopted as a result of each disaster. Filled with vivid descriptions of death and destruction, be the cause, fire, flood or wreck, each account takes on a quality similar to the one preceding it. Blood-curdling reports of havoc, horror and debasement may have a place in literature, but can only be of dubious value in such concentrated widespread form. Ghoulish realism, but not here recommended.