Abhay's new found fascination!

Ever since we watched a documentary on “Titanic” on the Discovery channel couple of months ago, Abhay has been fascinated with the unsinkable ship that sank a hundred years ago. Delighted as we were at his new-found interest, we were sure it would wane in a couple of weeks. Nevertheless we indulged him with more newspaper and internet articles and pictures on the Titanic. But little did we know that we were seeing only the tip of the iceberg! His interest not only grew day by day but heightened when he watched James Cameron's take on the most famous maritime tragedy. Thereafter, every story he narrated revolved around the Titanic, every lego play was about putting together a ship named Titanic and every drawing he sketched was his version of the Titanic! With his current obsession reaching such mountaenous proportions, I had to match the same with a book, isnt it? So I picked out “The Titanic Lost and Found” by Judy Donnelly and illustrated by Keith Kohler, part of the Step into Reading series with a Level 4 and had my husband read it at bedtime. Not only was Abhay excited, but I'm afraid was a little too excited to go to bed!

This early reader doubles up as a basic chapter book with four chapters tracing the first voyage of the wonder ship from England to America and ending with the discovery of its ruins, years later by Robert Ballard. The story describes how it all began on April 10^th 1912 when the biggest and the safest ship set sail across the Atlantic ocean with over 2227 people on board. Four days later on April 14^th tragedy struck when Titanic hit an iceberg on the icy waters off the coast of Canada. What followed was a desperate attempt to save as many people as the crew could, with women and children rushed to the limited number of lifeboats, while others hope for some miracle. (Abhay couldn’t understand why all the daddies got left out!) The illustrations vividly capture the scene when one end of the ship slides into the ocean while the other end swings straight up! Finally out of over 2000 people on board, only 705 passengers make it to New York. The story doesn’t end there but goes on to educate the readers of the new laws enacted to avoid such accidents, and the miraculous discovery of the remains of the unsinkable ship deep in the ocean floor. So if you have Titanic fanatic at home, have him read this easy non-fiction but at the same time, I must warn you reading this book at night can be harmful to yours and your little one's bed-time routine!