    | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 12/01/2011 This sturdy synthesis of the events leading up to, during, and following the Titanic disaster is, like other books of its kind, a model of minute-by-minute reconstruction. What gives Hopkinson’s effort a unique flavor is her almost exclusive use of the recollections of survivors as her source material, giving the tale we know so well a grittier, far less mythic feel. Legends are dispelled (the third class was not held back by locked gates) and little-known opinions are voiced (a head-on collision with the iceberg may have been preferable to the sideswipe). The prose can be a bit pat at times, and though some poetic license is taken (“Looking at photographs, it’s almost as if one can still hear the rustle of satin dresses”), the firsthand recollections have an immediate feel—particularly during the moments when each person first realizes the ship is beginning to list. Back matter, meanwhile, is exemplary: detailed bios, survivor letters, a time line, facts and figures, wreckage reports, lifeboat launching sequences, and excellent source notes are only some of what researchers will find waiting for them. - Copyright 2011 Booklist. School Library Journal - 02/01/2012 Gr 6 Up—As the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches, there is a whole new output of books reexamining and updating the information about the tragedy. This one weaves together the memories and writing of the survivors, and what makes it stand out is the intimacy readers feel for the crew and passengers. The story itself hasn't changed, but through Hopkinson's work, young people get to know and care deeply about the people involved. Children, stewards, officers, and passengers from all three class designations are included, and their stories combine to recount the events of that fateful April night. Readers with even a passing knowledge of the Titanic will find themselves drawn into the drama and heartbroken at the inevitable end. Period photographs, artwork, diagrams, and maps appear throughout to illustrate points and help clarify events. Traditionally accepted details about the ship from its construction to its luxurious appointments, are discussed, and some of the controversies that have arisen since the wreck was found, but the real focus here is on the people and the narrative. Students looking for real-life drama will find this an absorbing and richly satisfying read.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA - Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2012 The Titanic centennial commemoration has evoked fresh retellings in multiple genres (Denenberg’s splashy docufiction Titanic Sinks!, BCCB 12/11, for instance, and Wolf’s YA poetry The Watch that Ends the Night, BCCB 10/11), but for purists who want a straightforward chronology of the event, supported by substantial primary source material, this may be the title of choice. Hopkinson begins with a description of the ship, emphasizing its opulent features, and introduces some of the passengers who embarked on its maiden voyage. The narrative shifts rapidly to the disaster itself with a litany of things gone wrong, from the ignored iceberg warnings, to the inadequate number of lifeboat seats, to the flooded bulkheads, to the distress flares misinterpreted by a potential rescue vessel. Most gripping, though, are the memoirs that are interlaced throughout the text, as survivors testified from their varied perspectives on the relative chaos or calm, heroism or cowardice, of passengers and crew on the swiftly sinking deck. A generous number of period photographs, often all the more immediate and compelling for their very graininess, visually capture the sharp contrast between the luxury and desperation that marked the beginning and end of the doomed voyage. Copious end matter includes the expected bibliography, notes, and index, as well as biographical sketches of many passengers and crew, statistical charts, a timeline of the disaster, a glossary, and excerpts from the 1912 British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry Report. EB - Copyright 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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