¡Salvados! Terremoto

Survival! #2

by Kathleen Duey, Karen A. Bale, Gerardo Di Masso

San Francisco -- April 18, 1906Brendan O'Connor is delivering pastries to the bustling businesses and elegant hotels of San Francisco, dreaming that someday he will be a part of that life.Li Dai Yue is running from the isolated seciruty of Chinatown, distraught over the marriage her uncle has arranged for her.Chance throws them together on the day of the San Francisco earthquake.Can two strangers from such different worlds work together to survive the terror of crumbling buildings, fire, looting, and chaos?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Survival, Middle Grade

148 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 1998

About the author

Kathleen Duey grew up in Colorado. She loved riding her horses, hiking, being in the mountains. Reading was always important to her. Writing became a fascination early in her life. In the fourth grade, Kathleen began writing stories and told everyone who would listen that she was going to be an author. Then she did nothing about it until she was 35 years old. Writing was her passion and her dream-come-true.

from: fantasticfiction.co.uk

Kathleen died of cardiac arrest at her home in Fallbrook, California. She was 69. She had struggled with dementia in her latter years which prevented her from completing her Skin Hunger trilogy.

https://web.archive.org/web/202101052...

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The year is 1906 and young Brendan O'Connor is out delivering pastries when a massive earthquake hits the area destroying everything everything around Brendan. The earth opens up, building topple and fall, and fires begin to spread throughout the city. Across the city in Chinatown Li Dai Yue is upset at her uncle who is trying to marry her off to a nasty old man. She runs away when the earthquake hits. Eventually She and Brendan cross paths and they spend the next next just trying to survive and find a safe place while trying to avoid all the dangers from the aftershocks and the chaos that is spreading across the city.

I can imagine earthquakes are super scary, but being 12 years old, orphaned, and not knowing where to go or what to do has got to be absolutely terrifying. More terrifying for Dai Yue since she is a young Chinese girl and many residents of San Francisco did not like the Chinese and felt they needed to stay in their own area. It was a good thing these two crossed paths and decided to stick together or who knows what could have happened. The author did a wonderful job expressing their terror and the chaos of the disaster.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished in a day.

This children’s book features two kids, both about 12 years old, in San Francisco in 1906. One is Irish Catholic and the other is Chinese. They meet just as the quake starts. The book is pretty good at setting up the characters so that you care at least a little about them when disaster strikes. They walk around the city a lot, sometimes helping people. Mostly Dai Yue runs away and Brenden follows her. Repeat.



The ending is very abrupt.



It just stops about 24 hours after the quake, so you don’t get much of the aftermath. It’s pretty historically accurate. I grew up near San Francisco, and the planetarium at Golden Gate Park had a shake table, and you could feel what the 1906 earthquake felt like. It was really strong and unusually long.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brendan O’Connor is delivering pastries to the bustling businesses and elegant hotels of San Francisco, dreaming that someday he will be part of that life.Li Dai Yue is running from the isolated security of Chinatown, distraught over the marriage her uncle has arranged for her.Chance throws them together on the day of the San Francisco earthquake.

I read this for my ESL book club. It is short and readable. There isn't much of a plot, but does show the devastation of the earthquake from two different perspectives which may be interesting for our book club.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brendan O'Conner and Li Dai Yue are both twelve-year-old orphans living in 1906 San Francisco, unhappy with the circumstances of their lives but able to do little or nothing to change them. But the similarities end there. Brendan is Irish and works as a delivery boy, dreaming of rising from the poverty that he lives in. Dai Yue is a Chinese immigrant whose uncle has arranged for her to marry a much older man. The morning of the terrible earthquake, they are thrown together by fate. Now they must overcome their staggering cultural differences if they are to survive the disaster around them. This was a story not only about surviving a disaster but about the friendship between two children who come from very different worlds. A good middle grade read for fans of historical fiction or survival stories.

[Alex Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the largest in scope that I read from this series and tackling one of the biggest disasters in US history. I also liked how it tackled the issues the characters faced during the time period. It's an exciting book and a quick read

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book showed the bond of friendship that the San Francisco earthquake/fire might've made.