WINTER THUNDER

by Mari Sandoz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 1954

There has been no attempt to highlight the drama implicit in this true story of a school teacher whose grit saved the lives of the children entrusted to her care when a blizzard caught them out in the Nebraska sandhills, the bus stalled in a snow bank, caught fire and burned, and nine people were left to the mercy of the storm. The story is soberly told; the children, a teen-aged boy who had been driving, and seven younger children, come clear as individuals -- none of them of heroic stature; and the twenty three year old teacher holds the controls, rations the slender store of food, organizes the procurement of fuel, fights to sustain life through eight grim days, in a sort of igloo made from packed snow against willow branches tied together. Mari Sandoz knows the prairies with their uncharted reaches, the storms which blanket them in winter. Wisely, she has let the facts of this story build their own measure of tension and emotion.

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 1954

ISBN: 0803291612

Page Count: -

Publisher: Westminster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION