Will I love The Disaster Days?

In my search for a survival novel with a young female protagonist, I came across this gem set on a fictional island in the Pacific Northwest, close to where I live.

Thirteen-year-old Hannah is new to babysitting when disaster in the form of an earthquake strikes. I appreciated the way the protagonist constantly evaluates her situation, finding resilience and strength when there are no adults to turn to. 

The Disaster Days is a novel that has special appeal, I think, to midwesterners like myself who are equally fascinated and terrified by the idea of an earthquake. In Behren’s novel, not only does an earthquake actually happen, but it happens when young Hannah’s responsible for two young babysitting charges, Zoe and Oscar. Cut off from her family by a collapsed bridge, and cut off from the world by disabled communications systems, she is frightened to death but trying not to show it to the children. And trying not to think about the inhaler she left at home.

This… show more.