Search - The Children's Blizzard

I have family that live in South Dakota in the area that hit hard by this blizzard. He mentions Spirit Lake and these boys watching the storm roll over it before it hit them. That is the area where my family homesteaded and still live today, about 12 miles from DeSmet and Laura Ingles.
Even though I grew up 100 yrs after that storm, I knew about it.

I don't think you can find a cemetery in that area of South Dakota that does not have at least one marker that reads Jan 12 1888.

My Mother refused to read this book as felt it would be to painful to hear the stories over again. As she grew up there and knows how hard a Dakota winter can be.

Laskin did a wonderful job of taking a horrable chapter in our history, and telling it with senitivity. He did not go into gory detail about the death of so many and did put in the good side of the story too.

An engrossing narrative. You live the sorrows and victories right along with the protagonists. As well as telling about the blizzard, the author gives us biographies of the various people trapped by the weather.

I read this book a few years ago, and it still sticks with me. Knowing the blizzard was coming,I wanted to warn the kids and the teacher. I rooted for them to live, knowing the outcome would not be affected. I loved learning about the individual lives, and didn't know which ones would live and which ones would die. The way the stories are told make this book the gem it is. Laskin peels away the layers of their stories. The story that could have been a small lost part of South Dakota becomes the story of a generation lost to a rougue storm.

This book both fascinated and horrified me. It's the true tale of the harrowing blizzard of January 1888, as it swept the northern plains of the US. I wanted to jump into the pages of the book and make the children that ventured out into the storm stay in what shelter they could. My heart broke for the families who lost loved ones. This book will move you.