Titanic Sinks / Barry Denenberg / 68 pages

I can't swim, think deep water is scary, and have no desire to ever be on a big ship yet in honor of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I read a great book, Titanic Sinks. This is a book that will appeal to adults and kids alike. It is written as a compilation of news stories, an eye-witness account of a journalist and an interview with the captain of the Carpathian. We meet the famous passengers, captain, ship designer, and crew. We learn fascinating Titanic facts about the ship itself, provisions (40 tons of potatoes and 1200 quarts of fresh cream), lavish features and a timeline of the incident. We are in a lifeboat and hear the dying gasps of the thousands who froze to death in the frigid waters. Denenberg does a good job of placing the sinking of the Titanic as a major event in history (just like the Kennedy assassination or 9 11) and commenting on how the foibles, mistakes, arrogance and mentality that led to the 1912 disaster are not much different than our own arrogance and reliance on technology in the 21st century.