Title: Ice Storm
Author: Penny Draper
Publisher: Coteau Books
Age Range: Children (9+)
Time Period: 1998
Location: Montreal, Quebec
“Alice and Sophie are cousins and best friends. Life is good.
Then on January 5, 1998, it starts to rain. Freezing rain. It doesn’t stop. Soon their world is covered in deadly ice. Power lines and trees plummet to the ground. Homes have no heat or electricity.
Alice is all alone as her dad works overtime at Hydro-Quebec, trying to restore the power. Sophie fights alongside her family to keep their dairy herd alive.
Alice and Sophie have always been smart. But the ice storm forces them to think and work as adults, and they’ll never be the same again.”
It’s a little surreal to me to consider the Ice Storm of ’98 as history, but I suppose it is! I have personal memories of this storm – although it didn’t really affect us as much in Southwestern Ontario where I grew up as it did to the east of us. This past winter, we had a pretty nasty ice storm that left many without power for days where we currently live, and it gave me a new appreciation for the events of 1998.
This book is part of the Disaster Strikes series by Penny Draper. Told from two very different sets of eyes – one of Alice, who is an ice skater living in the city of Montreal, and the other her French cousin, Sophie, who lives on a dairy farm. I like that this allowed the opportunity to experience the storm from both perspectives – rural and urban, and how it affected each of them.
I liked this book a lot – it drew me in and intrigued me to see how two different girls faced the crisis of life without heat and power. Alice, alone as her father works the power lines, proves to herself that she has an inner strength, whereas Sophie works furiously to help keep her beloved cows alive. It brings a realization of how much electricity we use and depend on – especially for those in the farming community. It also drew a fantastic contrast between the people who work to help others and those who take advantage of opportunities for their own personal gain.
Penny Draper does a terrific job of exploring the emotional strain that this ice storm caused, not just the physical damage.
This is a well-written, hard-to-put-down book.
Although this book publisher is no longer in business, you could look for their books at your local library or second hand.
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