David Laskin

Thousands of impoverished Northern European immigrants were promised that the prairie offered "land, freedom, and hope." The disastrous blizzard of 1888 revealed that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled, and America’s heartland would never be the same. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The Children's Blizzard

Patrick Book

This is a great depiction of an astounding event with a death toll that literally could not be believed at the time. Laskin does a great job of explaining the science behind this particular incident, but also the results of prolonged exposure to the human body. If you’ve ever looked at a tipi or a sod house and wondered how people managed to survive in the kind of weather conditions we see in the prairies, this is very illuminating.

Lara Engle

This true tale of the blizzard of January 12, 1888, deftly transitions between the stories of families, the science of 19th century weather prediction, and the effects of environmental factors on the human body. I readily admit that the portions about the military and their signal corps drama did not interest me. But the stories of the families who bravely left their old lives behind only to find heartbreak and tragedy in the Dakota Territory were touchingly told without becoming maudlin. As a teacher descended from women who taught in one-room schoolhouses on the prairie, I was especially affected by the stories of the teachers who had to decide what to do worth their young pupils when the blizzard so suddenly threatened. There were no easy choices and no methods of communication to help. Overall, this was an informed and well-researched account of a chapter in my region's history that I didn't know about. (Also, it was really sad. How do I get away from all these sad books?!)

The Children's Blizzard

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