*River Friendly, River Wild (2000)

      River Friendly, River Wild (2000) is a first-hand account of the 100-year flood that destroyed the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Jane Kurtz wrote this collection of poems in the weeks just after the Red River flood of 1997. It opens with a  friendly memory: "The river wiggled like a fat brown thread along the flat quilt of the red river valley, stitching North Dakota and Minnesota together.” With this poetic voice, the following pages describe accumulating snow, piling sandbags, packing suitcases, evacuating her house, watching the floodwaters rise, and then returning home to a neighborhood destroyed.

    Jane Kurtz writes,  “I offer the book as a  salute to all of us who struggled through the 1997 flood and years of recovery; to the volunteers from the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and various churches who helped clean up Grand Forks; and to anyone who has done the amazing job of picking up life after a flood, tornado, hurricane, fire, or other natural disaster.“ This intensely emotional book is illustrated with the deep rich paintings of Neil Brennan that have just enough softness to take away the painful edges of reality.

     "The Red River Flood", presented by Media 523, is a documentary  appropriate for middle school and older. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e9TBqO97V0 )

     Mrs Gov's Classroom has Natural Disasers and their Impact on the Environment. Nathan Ball has Flooding Powerpoint.  Furutrum Careers has How can urban trees redce flooding and pollution?

 My Picture Book Talk lesson for this book is here.