Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 

by Sally M. Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"On December 6, 1917 two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One ship was loaded top to bottom with munitions and one held relief supplies, both intended for wartorn Europe. The resulting blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn't devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and paralyzing much-needed relief efforts." --jacket copy

Written for a juvenile audience this book is based on extensive archival research and interviews with people who lived through the tragedy. It contains a lot of photographs from various archives and museums which enhance the historical record. The author focuses on several families who lived in the area, from a variety of backgrounds, and takes the reader through the individual experiences of those people along with the report of events in the harbor that led to the explosion. This is a horrifying event in Canadian history told with compassion and attention to human detail.

I am counting this book toward the Canadian Reading Challenge, and the Nonfiction Reader Challenge (as social history).