What Was the Great Molasses Flood of 1919? (What Was?)

by Kirsten Anderson (Author) Dede Putra (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 4^th − 5^th Grade

Series: What Was?

Learn about Boston's molasses disaster of 1919, when a storage tank burst and flooded the streets, in this latest addition to the New York Times Bestselling What Was? series.

An unusually warm winter day resulted in 2.3 million gallons of molasses flooding the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The disaster killed twenty-one people and injured 150 others. Rescue missions were launched to save people from the sticky and deadly mess, led by the Red Cross, the Army, the Navy, and the Massachusetts Nautical School. With the help of hundreds of volunteers over the course of several weeks, the streets were cleaned up. But the smell of molasses and the horror of the preventable tragedy lingered for decades to come.

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Kirsten Anderson

Kirsten Anderson is a writer and actress who lives in New York City with her charming Pomeranian, Sunflower. She has written several biographies for children, including Who Is Zendaya? and Who Is Kamala Harris?

Tim Foley's clients have included national and international magazines, book publishers and advertising agencies, such as The Wall Street Journal, Cricket Magazine, Barrons, New York Newsday, LA Weekly, Penguin Books, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Classification

Non-fiction

ISBN-13

9780593520772

Lexile Measure

Guided Reading Level

Publisher

Penguin Workshop

Publication date

April 09, 2024

Series

What Was?

BISAC categories

JNF025210 - Juvenile Nonfiction | History | United States/20th Century
JNF051160 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Science & Nature | Disasters

Library of Congress categories

History
20th century
Massachusetts
Boston
Boston (Mass.)
Accidents
Floods
1865-
Molasses industry
Industrial accidents

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