THE DANGER FILES

Fact-file inserts and eyewitness accounts help readers understand the causes, courses, and aftermaths of five historical calamities.

Confirmed disaster fans will likely already be familiar with the examples Crowley Redding has chosen, but they’ll be pleased with her selection. The disasters vary widely in type and scope—the flu epidemic of 1918 killed roughly 50 million people worldwide, whereas 21 people died in Boston’s Great Molasses Flood of 1919—and for each catastrophe, the author includes a broad assortment of background facts and accounts of actual young survivors, such as Werner Franz, a cabin boy aboard the Hindenburg. Along with systematically analyzing causes and long-term effects, Crowley Redding highlights the impact of anti-immigrant prejudice in both the Great Chicago Fire (no, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow wasn’t the culprit, contrary to a news story that stoked anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiments) and the sticky flood in Boston’s North End. She also profiles rescuer Anna Elizabeth Hudlun, the “Fire Angel” of Chicago, as well as other Black people involved in the catastrophes. Though the occasional demonstrations of such topics as freezing chemistry and static electricity are woefully perfunctory, the blow-by-blow narratives make for absorbing reading, and the substantial bibliography at the end should please even the most demanding young documentarians. Final art not seen.

Catastrophically engrossing.