Natural Disaster True Survival Stories series. In a series about real-life disaster survival, these volumes focus on two earthquakes and tsunamis that hit Asia. In each book, a brief introduction describes the disaster, followed by chapters that detail real individuals’ involvement. Gripping, you-are-there narratives are supplemented with primary source quotations (footnoted and sourced); photos and other graphics (maps, graphs, diagrams, etc.) provide additional insight. Reading list, timeline. Glos., ind.

Following a two-page overview of the title event, each volume presents four or five dramatic accounts of people who experience the effects. Photos of survivors accompany many stories, including those of a small boy pulled from Haiti’s earthquake rubble and a man floating on his house 10 miles off the coast of Japan. Along with tales of heroic rescues are unusual discussions such as how animals fled well before people sensed the Indian Ocean tsunami and how a structure was designed to survive wildfires. The locations, causes, and extent of each disaster are well documented. Individual accounts of disaster survivors put a human face on statistics of injuries, fatalities, and devastating losses. A top choice for most collections.