Quake by Joe Cottonwood
I was really intrigued with the premise of Quake by Joe Cottonwood, which is a middle grade fiction book about the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Plus, I needed a Q title for the A-Z title challenge. My plan was to read Q Road but I was unable to track a copy down. So Quake it was. I’d never read a book about the aftermath of an earthquake but I imagine that it would be a great backdrop to many different kinds of stories about courage..
In Quake, Franny’s parents leave her to babysit her younger brother who loves all things gruesome while they attend the World Series baseball game. Franny is excited because Jennie, a friend who moved away, is also visiting. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other but they find that they don’t get along like they used to. It’s against this backdrop that they felt it. An earthquake like no other. Homes slide down the hill, boulders crashed through the trees, cars bounced up and down, power lines and trees fell everywhere. Unhurt, Frannie must take action and help her brother, friend, and neighbors. She fears that her parents have died at the stadium but has no way to find out. A landslide has cut off their community on the hill and they must rely upon themselves to make it through the aftermath of a terrible natural disaster.
The base of the story was a good idea and I think that kids would like it. Joe Cottonwood, the author, witnessed the San Francisco earthquake and is able to write from first hand experience. However, I thought it had the potential to be so much more. Halfway through the book, I had to go back to double check whether Franny, the main character was a girl or boy. I guess I wanted more drama than there was. I could be completely mistaken here, but I think this was Joe Cottonwood’s first book (correct me if I’m wrong). I would be willing to read his other books to see if his writing gets better.
Visit Joe Cottonwood’s website and blog.
Are there any other fictional or memoir books about natural disasters? Quake has gotten me interested in looking into the subject more.
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Category: Book Reviews, Fiction, Middle Readers
Tags: A-D Author, historical fiction, Q-T Title
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I also like this one, and since it is an easy read and very fast-paced, it is good for reluctant readers. Good luck on your alphabetic march!
on November 24th, 2008 at 5:55 amQ!!! I’m very impressed. I admit I gave up on the A to Z challenge with just 6 or so letters to go. Q and X were just not yielding anything I wanted to read. And I couldn’t find an I author I wanted to read.
on November 24th, 2008 at 9:19 amI think Aftershocks and Into the Firestorm might be good choices. Aftershocks is YA and Into the Firestorm is middle grade.
For hurricanes, you might try Hurricane Song or Ruby’s Imagine. I can’t remember if you’d read Two Bobbies or not. I seem to remember that you have.
Of course, my favorite is the all-too-fictional (thank goodness!!!) novel Life As We Knew It!
on November 24th, 2008 at 11:07 amThere’s a pretty good earthquake novel entitled “The Rift,” by Walter J. Williams. It’s adult reading.
on November 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pmMs. Yingling – I’m glad to hear that you like it. It is a very easy read, perfect for reluctant readers. Even though the main character is a girl, I think a lot of boys would like it.
CB James – I’m so close to finishing! I’ve only got about 4 left and I don’t know if I’ll get it done. It’s been fun though!
Becky & Chartoose – Thanks for the great recommendations. I’m going to look at all of them. Natural disasters seem a perfect backdrop for stories.
on November 24th, 2008 at 4:52 pmHi Natasha. I’m sorry Quake! didn’t meet your expectations. It wasn’t my first book by any means. In fact it’s my fourth book for younger readers following several for adults – I guess it’s my eighth book. Maybe in my earlier books, my writing “gets better.”
I’m honored that you took the time to read my book.
Maybe I should write a book with an X title. I hadn’t realized what a benefit it is to start your titles with unusual letters.
It’s a pleasure to find your blog. Keep it up!
Best wishes,
on November 24th, 2008 at 11:49 pmJoe
Joe – Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog. Thank you for clarifying which book order Quake! was. Perhaps I assumed that it was a much earlier book because the book cover felt dated. I certainly didn’t have any problem making my way through it. I suppose something felt lacking, but what I wanted I don’t think I even know. But I do think younger readers would like it. I really like the idea of setting this story up against a natural disaster like an earthquake. What a great way to showcase courage and growth.
Also, I appreciate your kind response to my review. In light of some recent controversy in the book blogging community, it is more appreciated than you know.
If you wouldn’t mind me asking, do you have a favorite book of yours that you would recommend? I was interested in trying another one of your books. (Even if it doesn’t start with X!)
on November 25th, 2008 at 12:09 amNow you’ve really piqued my curiosity: What is the “recent controversy in the book blogging community”? I can tell you that there is a discussion going on among writers as to whether it’s a good idea to comment on book blogs. My own feeling is that it’s a good idea as long as you’re respectful and polite, that it’s always a good idea to engage in a conversation with people who have done you the honor of devoting several hours of their lives to reading something you’ve written.
Quake!, by the way, is frequently assigned as reading to kids not as part of an English curriculum but as part of a science class, as it seems to engage them into learning about earthquakes – and disaster preparation – always a good thing, especially here in California where we tend to forget about the coming Big One.
Recommendations? Start with the letter A: Adventures of Boone Barnaby. Or go for an adult title: Clear Heart has just come out, and it’s available on Amazon.
I like this blog. You all have a down-home, real world attitude toward books. I’ll be following along.
Joe
on November 26th, 2008 at 9:48 amI think this book sounds very interesting, but this is the kind of thing that terrifies my daughter. She isn’t afraid of snakes, spiders, creepy crawlies, blood and gore….it’s natural disasters that scare her. She read a book that had a Tsunami in it and pestered me for days what we would do if there was a Tsunami here. We live California, but close to Sacramento….not exactly coastline. I told her to have her goggles and lifevest ready.
I suppose I shouldn’t joke, but it gets her out of her fear usually. Anyways, earthquakes, which could happen here, would just open up a whole can of worms that I don’t want to deal with right now.
Joe- I would also like to know some of your other titles and what you recommmend. By the way, I’m so glad you are a writer who can take constructive critisism. You can’t please everyone, but it’s good to know what some people don’t like and what they do. But Natasha is always great at giving fair book reviews. I have never heard her slate a book without giving a reason i.e. abandoned the book completely for bad language.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:24 pmYou are the best judge of what your daughter would like, but I just want to tell you that Quake! is an empowering book. I have hundreds of emails from kids who now feel ready to take on a quake, and one from a kid in Connecticut lamenting that they don’t have quakes there.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:36 pmI’ve tried a couple of times to respond with recommendations, but each time the post has vanished into the ether. If they don’t show up in a day or so, I’ll try again.
As for taking criticism, hey, I couldn’t have survived 40 years of writing without shrugging off a lot of it, and accepting those that ring true. There’s no right or wrong way to react to a book – whatever you feel, it’s what you feel, it’s valid, and an author has to recognize its validity for at least that one single person.
Joe
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pmHmmm…That is a good point. Feeling prepared and knowing what might happen is a good way to take away fear. Like practicing a fire drill, so you know what to if there is a fire.
Are all of your books ‘disaster’ related? Are they all set to this reading level?
Thanks for the input Joe. I appreciate it. It’s good to know it’s empowering.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:43 pmSometimes it gets picked up as spam if it just vanishes. Natasha should see it and approve it when she sees it.
I still think it’s awesome that you take the good and bad and grow from it. Thank you for visiting us here personally and commenting.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pmJust tried a third time. Still vanishing. Maybe one day 3 identical posts from me will bombard this page.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pmI have 3 other titles for middle readers: Adventures of Boone Barnaby, Danny Ain’t, and Babcock. None are about disasters – unless you count love and friendship and family as disasters…
All 3 titles are out of print. Boone Barnaby will soon be available as a podcast, if your daughter would like to hear a book on her ipod.
Thanks for your interest.
Joe
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:52 pmHA! She just started getting interested in ‘listening’ to books on CD while she does things in her room like paint or play around with toys. She just got a new speaker set for her ipod and we were just talking about how she could download books onto it.
on November 26th, 2008 at 2:57 pmSorry Joe about the frustrating comments. It did get picked up as SPAM (who knows why especially when you’ve commented before). I wish I was tech savvy enough to have a pop up window saying it was picked up but I’ll approve it. Anyways, I’ve published your comments.
Concerning the “controversy” recently, a book blogger received a signed book from an author from a book giveaway he hosted. She didn’t care for the book and posted as much. It was fair but honest. The author was upset because he thought that because he personally gave her the book that she shouldn’t have posted a negative review. He asked her not to remove the review but rather remove the cover art and a short passage of text which she used to illustrated how choppy she thought the writing was. He’s also a lawyer and used that to intimidate and imply a lawsuit if she didn’t agree. Many other bloggers picked up the story, many chimed in with their own opinions. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the author hadn’t written four blog posts tearing apart book bloggers and leaving a long trail of comments on many blogs about the whole thing. To make a long story short, it was like a train wreck that we all couldn’t stop watching. I only wish that much of it had happened privately instead of in the open. Thank goodness, it has died down now but the general outcome was that bloggers should be fair, respectful and honest without tearing the author apart. It was also a great example of how an author should not respond to a review.
I personally LOVE it when authors stop by and leave a comment. It’s always a great reminder that there is a person behind the pages. I love the interaction. I’ve had several authors stop by and all have been appreciative and kind, yourself included. If done with mutual feelings of respect, I can’t see any harm done in authors interacting with readers.
This interaction alone has sold me on being willing to read your other books. So for that you should be commended!
on November 26th, 2008 at 4:13 pmNatasha, It is so nice to see the thoughts from an author and to know that they (authors) have been having a controversy of their own as we have gone through our controversy about negative reviews. It’s great to see Joe’s honesty and willingness to “put himself out there” by commenting on a blog. I have received 2 comments lately from authors and personally I’m glad they are doing it. It lets us (book bloggers) know that even the authors are taking note of what we are doing.
on November 26th, 2008 at 4:35 pmI just read through this post again and the more I read the comments left by Joe…the more I want to read the book! Someone who can converse with his readers and take everything in stride. I want to read this book because I like Joe!
on December 1st, 2008 at 12:04 amI managed to miss this review the first time around, probably in my frenzy of writing an essay, but I did read this book when I was a kid! I liked it, too. I remember that it scared me, I remember the description of the wave in the swimming pool, and I remember being glad that I lived in NJ where earthquakes don’t happen. LOL! That’s about all I remember, but I appear to be the only commenter who read the book as a kid, so I thought I’d stick my head in over here. I’m very glad to discover that the author is so kind. =)
on December 1st, 2008 at 4:59 amYou might try The School Children’s Blizzard (On My Own History) by Marty Rhodes Figley and illustrated by Shelly O. Haas. It was published in 2004 by Carolrhoda Books. The book tells the story of one class of children caught in the sudden blizzard in January 1888 in Nebraska. Several hundred children died in the story trying to get home from school. The story is very well told and the illustrations are terrific.
Marcia
on December 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pmBetter Than Magic
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/BetterThanMagic.html
Marcia – Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll be looking into it.
on December 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 amHow awesome that Joe commented and he was so positive about a not-quite-positive review!
on December 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm