![]() There’s a Cast of Characters listed in the front of the book but it requires a bit of backing and forthing to keep everyone straight (and only if you’re dedicated to doing so). Now the problem with this is that Kops includes so many people that it’s hard to tell one from another sometimes. That way when the event occurs there are people you know directly involved. We see a bar owner worried about the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, children outside picking leaking molasses from the outside of the tank as candy, train car inspectors on the job, firemen settling down to a siesta, and more. Kops opens the book on the day of the accident and leads up to it by leaping from person to person. So how do you manage to keep the important fact (molasses wave) prominent while at the same time restraining the text from devolving into some kind of bad joke? The solution appears to be a kind of you-are-there approach. Yes, they were maimed, or killed, or hurt by the equivalent of a tidal wave of melted sugar. Kops has a duty to tell this tale in such a way where the audience is sympathetic to the folks involved. The Great Molasses Flood sounds, when you say it aloud, like a bad Monty Python sketch. One of the difficulties in making a book like this is in the telling. what? It all makes slightly more sense when you hear that molasses was useful for making weapons and in a WWI era American that was why you’d have a tank of the stuff. I mean, really? A big old WAVE of molasses came down the street? People died?!? Of molasses? I mean. All the stories are true but I had a hard time swallowing (forgive the pun) this molasses blarney. That book’s a great collection of well-known and somewhat obscure tales from this nation’s past. ![]() So if I’m going to be honest with you, the first time I heard about The Great Molasses Flood was in Jennifer Armstrong’s The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History. We used to have an old man in my children’s room that would come regularly to sit and read our history books because he liked how they laid out the facts. Was it an act of terrorism (anarchists were in full swing so this wasn’t a crazy theory) or the fault of the tank? Whatever it was, it was an event that lasted long in the memories of those involved, even after the sticky sweet smell had faded.īecause I am a children’s librarian and I had a somewhat spotty education when it came to American history I tend to get most of my historical information from works intended for kids. A 40-foot wave of molasses makes a mark, and when all was said and done folks had to figure out who was to blame. Instantly 2,319,525 gallons of molasses spilled onto the streets, lifting homes, destroying elevated train tracks, and ultimately killing 21 people and wounding countless others. The molasses tank, located next to Boston Harbor and the train yard, burst wide open. Then, at 12:40 in the afternoon, the strangest thing occurred. And folks were just going about their workday as usual. Forty-three degrees if you can believe it. The Great Molasses Flood answers every question a person might have about that infamous moment in history, and does so with compassion and accuracy (two qualities all authors, adult, children, teen, what have you, should strive to achieve). ![]() So it is that once again I rely on the good authors of informational books for kids to fill in my spotty knowledge with their wise words. How exactly does molasses go about flooding anyway? Maybe if I’d lived in Boston I’d have had an idea, but I’ve never set so much as a toe in that town. Indeed, until I read Kops’s book I wasn’t even sure about the logistics. I admit I was surprised since before this book I hadn’t seen ANY that covered this event thoroughly, fictional or nonfictional. Apparently there was a time there when it felt like every other children’s chapter book manuscript she received took place during that Boston tragedy. ![]() In the course of the evening she happened to notice that I had a copy of The Great Molasses Flood by Deborah Kops sitting on my shelf. I was hosting a party the other night and amongst my guests was a former editor of children’s literature.
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