The Children's Blizzard

On the afternoon of January 12, 1888, a devastating blizzard swept across the Great Plains. Five hundred people, mostly immigrants and schoolchildren, were left dead; the catastrophe would forever cast a shadow on the promise of the American frontier. David Laskin tells the gripping story of the storm and its aftermath in the award-winning The Children’s Blizzard. Laskin examines the blizzard’s impact on six pioneer families and their children, along with the U.S. Army Signal Corps officer who forecast the storm, and the tangled bureaucracy that made it so difficult to spread word to the people of the region. Written with remarkable insight and empathy, this is a masterful portrait of a tragic, unsung episode in the history of America’s heartland. David Laskin is the author of Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal Among the New York Intellectuals and Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Smithsonian. He lives in Seattle. “Laskin pulls no punches ... The Children’s Blizzard is a welcome contribution to the historical literature of American life and westward expansion.” — Chicago Sun-Times edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.