Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Hattie Marshall and the Hurricane
Fiction
For ages 9 to 12
Pelican, 2000 ISBN: 978-1565546752
Hattie Marshall has never really been far from her Texas home and is over the moon when the family of her friend Eric invites her to join them on a vacation to a New Orleans and Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus begins an adventure full of new sights, new sounds, and new people to meet. Eric’s family and Hattie are soon settled into the Grand Gulf Hotel and are enjoying the pursuits of vacationers including bathing in the ocean wearing very daring bathing suits. They also find themselves strangely attracted to an unfriendly, handsome young man who agrees to take them out in his boat on an excursion. The excursion turns out to be much more then either Hattie or Eric ever expected, first becoming a treasure hunt and then an effort to survive the ferocious attack of a hurricane.
Well paced, interesting and with a likeable heroine, this is a fun adventure tale. The author has included a small descriptive section about the hurricane of October 1, 1893 in the back of the book.
The reader can read more about Hattie and her world in the other books in the Frontier Hattie Marshall Adventures series.