Non-Fiction

by David Laskin. It occurred in the upper Midwest in January of 1888, a couple of months before the Blizzard of '88 in NYC. It got it's name because the day it happened, that morning was unseasonably warm, and many children went off to school without coats. A few hours later the temperature dropped precipitously, and the snow started. Many children froze to death trying to get home.

Like Isaac's Storm, it tells about the early days of the National Weather Service.

Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History by Denise Gess and William Lutz. October 8, 1871 is remembered as the date of the Great Chicago Fire. On that same date, in the woods of Wisconsin, a terrible forest fire raged, and more than 2,000 people died, nearly ten times the death toll in Chicago.