Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass : the Halifax Explosion of 1917
by Sally M. Walker

Summary from back cover:
December 6, 1917, started lie any other day in Halifax, but everything stopped shortly before 9 a.m., when two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One of those ships was loaded with munitions and the other held medical supplies, both intended for war-torn Europe.
The resulting disaster was the largest man-made explosion until the detonation of the atomic bomb in 1945. The 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 slowing much needed relief efforts.
Packed with period photographs, Blizzard of Glass is just what today's young nonfiction lovers are looking for: a fascinating true story and a gripping read.

Back in 2004 Cathy Beveridge wrote a fiction story based on the Halifax explosion titled : Chaos in Halifax, it's a great book and this is also a great book filling in some details about this harrowing event in Canadian history. I liked how the book followed the story of several young people (survivors) as they started their day and the aftermath that followed. The photos from the Nova Scotia archives also provide the reader with a true sense of how forceful the blast and the following tsunami was on the towns of Dartmouth and Halifax.
I can't wait to share this narrative non-fiction with G.S. Lakie students.