By Ken Valenti
WESTPORT–Westporter Lauren Tarshis’s best-selling “I Survived” book series, fictionalized stories of true events, began with a call from a teacher in the South Bronx.
The educator said that a troubled student who did not read much was gripped by a Storyworks article Tarshis had written about a catastrophic blizzard that struck the Dakota Territory in 1888.
“Something about that story really captivated him, he went home and he did read it – he read it over and over,” Tarshis said, recalling what the teacher told her. “She said it really opened this door for him.”
The call sparked a historical fiction book series that is now more than two dozen entries strong, telling stories of resilient youngsters surviving tragedies from the destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD to the California wildfires of 2018.
Tarshis will be available to sign books and chat with readers at the Westport Library on March 15 at 3 p.m. The event is a fundraiser for the Westport Book Shop, which recently marked its fifth anniversary.
Children’s tickets are $10 and include one “I Survived” book. Tickets are $5 for adult chaperones or others who do not want one of the books. Children under age 5 may attend free but must be registered in advance. The library is at 20 Jesup Road (across from the book shop, at 23 Jesup Road).
Tickets are available at https://LaurenTarshisMarch15.eventbrite.com.
The event will begin with an “I Survived” trivia contest through the online platform “Kahoot!” (Participants must bring their own internet-enabled mobile phone, tablet or laptop.)
Jocelyn Barandiaran, president of Westport Book Sales, the nonprofit that operates the Westport Book Shop, said Tarshis is a strong supporter of the store and its mission of hiring people with disabilities for its paid staff.
“She’s very generous with her time with young people,” Barandiaran said. She said the store receives many “I Survived” books handed down by families whose children outgrow them, and from Tarshis, who donates them.
“Because she is a popular author, we have a regular supply of those books,” she said.
Once Tarshis was struck by the “I Survived” idea, she put aside a novel she’d been working on – her third – to propose a series of novels. Published by Scholastic, the series started in 2010 with “I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912.” The 25th entry, covering the 1935 Dust Bowl, hit bookshelves last October.
Many of the stories recount events from United States history – the Chicago fire of 1871, the Boston molasses flood in 1919, the 1916 shark attacks in New Jersey and so on. But they also capture world events, such as the Black Death of 1348.
A few years ago, Scholastic began adapting them into graphic novels.
The novels’ main characters are fictional, freeing Tarshis to add fictional details and plots that address ideas such as friendship, family and loss.
“What I’m focused on is a realistic way that kids can move through a difficult time with the help of their families and friends and communities and how they can regain a sense of safety and joy,” she said.
But the stories are grounded in historical facts. To research them, Tarshis travels to where the misfortune struck and interviews residents – including people who lived through the events depicted, when she focuses on recent events.
Her husband, photographer David Dreyfuss, captures the research adventures in photographs and videos on Tarshis’s website.
At first, Tarshis generally stuck with events well in the past, but she ventured into more current stories when children began to request them. Now, “I Survived” novels recount 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and even the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Approaching 9/11 was a challenge, Tarshis said, until she spoke to firefighters who were involved, she said.
“They were open, eager to share their stories and celebrate their colleagues,” she said. “Once I realized that it would really be about focusing on that, it made the story much more accessible. It wasn’t about a terrorist, it was (about) what it was like to be a first responder and to grow up with a father who was a first responder.”
The author’s audience helps shape the books along the way. She reads to classes across the country, often asking input from the children on a book in progress. At the Westport Library event, she said, she is likely to read a chapter from her next novel, “I Survived a Night of Lions,” about a baseball-loving kid from Boston visiting the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
“There’s an incident that forces him to confront his entire world,” she revealed of the novel in progress. “You have the opportunity to see in the end that there is a much broader world for him.”
Ken Valenti
A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.
Lauren is a great writer and her “I survived” books are must reads. My grandchildren are looking forward to meeting the author of the books they have come to love.
Once again, the Westport Library is showing why it is the only five star library in the state.