"Flood!" - Non-Fiction

"Flood!"is one of the six non-fiction books in the Nature's Disasters series. John Waters, the author, did an amazing job of breaking this natural disaster into eleven chapters. Chapter one focuses on how floods have been viewed by society over time. It speaks of the biblical example of Noah and the ark, all the way to the Missouri River flooding in St. Louis during 1986. The second chapter focuses on what a flood is. The display of vocabulary words begins in this chapter, and can be identified by the bold font for the words. The third chapters explains how floods can be created by tropical storms. Real life examples are told in this chapter. Chapter four continues to explain floods by describing seasonal flooding. The author continues the book by describing to the reader that flash floods can result from tropical storms, dam failures, or from the combination of rain and melting snow in chapter five. There is great vocabulary found in the sixth chapter, Earth Dams and Levees. The Vaiont and the Aswan dams are described in the next chapter. Not only are there great pictures shown in chapter eight which covers coastal flooding, but there are also very detailed diagrams that explain the information given. The next chapter explains the different types of warning systems. I found the tenth chapter to be very important, because it helps to clearly explain not only flood prevention but also flood control. The last chapter listed past famous floods, and told when they occured and brief information about each. I found this book to be very informational. It could be used at any level in elementary school as a resource or as an informative read. Prior to reading this book I only had a low level of knowledge about floods, but after reading and reviewing the information that the author provided, I feel that I have a much better understanding of floods.