"I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912" by Lauren Tarshis

I came across this series on accident, but it's exactly the kind of series that I just love!  When I was younger, I was always drawn to historical fiction (oddly, I much prefer that written for elementary school age over than for teens and adults).  One of my favorite series was the Travelers Through Time.  Though there were only three, I read them often.  The I Survived books by Lauren Tarshis, remind me quite a bit.  I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912, the first in the series, George is traveling back home with his sister Phoebe and their Aunt Daisy.  Though they have only been on board a short time, he has already met Mr. Andrews and found out about the layout of the ship and discovered a secret- there is the mummy of an Egyptian princess on board the Titanic!  Naturally George decides he wants to get a glimpse of the mummy before they land in New York but a man with a scarred face has the same idea.  Just as the man opens the crate containing the mummy, something happens and the ship begins to sink!  Can George survive?

This book is more or less what you would expect with the subject matter (there sure are a LOT of books about the Titanic) but since it is the first in the series, I think it is a good introduction to these books.  It's great to see how real elements of history are reflected in the pages.  Kids reading this book for fun will still learn something from George's adventure.  I also enjoyed that the book ends with a list of facts (I always appreciate these sort of things because I remember them helping me out with school reports).  I am anxious to read more books in this series (at the time of writing this review there are seven, but I suspect that there will be more).  I also like that fact that it is a series since it's always nice to be able to direct kids to books like the ones they just read.  If you read this book, you will not be disappointed!



Happy Reading!
-Melly