Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Rain Tonight: The Story of Hurricane Hazel
Illustrator: Heather Collins
Nonfiction
For ages 8 to 12
Tundra Books, 2004 ISBN: 978-0887766411
It was the fall of 1954 and Penny Doucette was living in the small village of Weston not far from the city of Toronto. She and her class had been following the progress of hurricane Hazel for a week now. Born over the unseasonably warm water of the Atlantic, the hurricane first hit the Caribbean. Then it swept up the east coast of the United States. Most people expected that the great storm, which had killed many people and had caused a great deal of damage, would die out before it got too far north. It certainly did loose much of his power, but it did not disappear all together.
On the night of October 15th the hurricane dumped a massive amount of water onto the area around Toronto. The river right outside Penny's door rose and she woke up in the middle of the night to find that there was water in her room. It was too dangerous to try to go outside so Penny and her family and a neighbor ended up having to climb onto the roof of her house. All they could do was to hold on and to hope that someone would see them and come to their rescue.
As they read this enthralling true story about hurricane Hazel young readers will discover for themselves what it is like to experience one of these formidable forces of nature first hand. In his narration the author also includes a lot of information about how the hurricane was formed and general information about hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. Boxes containing pertinent information about hurricanes can be found on many of the pages and readers will discover that hurricanes have had a lasting and meaningful impact on human world history.
