I Survived the Joplin Tornado, 2011 (I Survived #12) by Lauren Tarshis

 

I don't live far from Joplin, Missouri and I remember that day very clearly. When we lived in our little college town with a new baby, our sirens were going off like crazy. My husband at the time went outside our apartment and saw a tornado in the sky. It was scary, but we were able to make it out that night with no damage. The town next to us did not make it through that tornado that hit. The town lost most of it's buildings. But that night the coverage on the news was not that small town but Joplin which was across state lines. So when I found this book, I had to read it to my children then show them the coverage of the tornado on youtube. We live in tornado alley and have had close calls with tornados near us but have not actually experienced a tornado ourselves. 

In this book, Eleven-year-old Dexter always wanted to see a tornado. He was given an opportunity to go storm chasing with Dr. Norman Ray. Dex knew how deadly tornados can be, but this one was heading right towards his home town. Will Dexter's bravery gets tested as he comes face to face with a tornado. I Survived the Joplin Tornado, 2011 by Lauren Tarshis was published in August 2015. This book is #12 in the I Survived series. 

I absolutely love the I Survived series and found out about it from my daughter third grade class. The kids are so into the books and I love how it is a mixture of facts inside a fiction story. In this book, I knew a lot of the facts as I live in tornado alley and live not far from Joplin. So it was nice to be able to see how much the author uses in the story of true facts. This book has such a fun storyline for kids to get enraptured into the book. The author knows her way with word and character development that it feels like you are living in the story. This book was really easy to read aloud before bed and I loved how each chapter left you hanging. My kids were begging me to keep reading it. I can't wait to read more books from this series. 

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