Newman Remembers Titanic in Latest Book Publicity Tour
Titanic – Voices from the Disaster
Author: Deborah Hopkinson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
You’ve seen the movie, and you’ve fallen in love with the characters. But what are the real stories of the people who met the same fate as the RSS Titanic, and, better yet, what can survivors teach young readers about that infamous night in April 1912?
Leading up to the hundredth anniversary of the tragedy, Newman Communications has been at the helm a book publicity campaign for TITANIC: Voices from the Disaster (Scholastic Press, March 2012) by Deborah Hopkinson, acclaimed author of historical fiction and nonfiction for young readers. In TITANIC, Hopkinson resurfaces a hundred-year-old tragedy through the stories and voices of those who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
TITANIC renews the drama, detail, and depth that intrigued millions nearly a century ago, but with a better understanding of how the ship declared to be unsinkable sank in a matter of hours. Hopkinson’s strikingly humanistic approach to the Titanic redefines historiography, creating a truly complete picture of the wreckage that doesn’t rely on commissioner reports alone.
Letters and narrative accounts from TITANIC’s passengers prompt readers to think of those whose journey ended along with what Hopkinson calls “a masterpiece of human engineering:”
- In a letter to their parents, Harvey, Lot, and Madge wrote, “Well dears so far we are having a delightful trip the weather is beautiful and the ship magnificent…Lots of love and don’t worry about us. Ever your loving children.”
- “You have to try to imagine it – the last moment I saw my dear sister stand there with little Thelma tightly in her arms.” Ernst Persson, third class passenger.
- “I almost thought, as I saw her sink beneath the water, that I could see Jacques, standing where I had left him and waving at me.” May Futrelle, first class passenger remembering her husband
“This book is an introduction to the disaster and to just a few of the people who survived,” says Hopkinson, “I hope their stories and voices remind you, as they do me, that our lives are fragile and precious. And I hope they make you wonder, as I do, what it would have been like to be on the Titanic that night so long ago...”
TITANIC has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and School Library Journal.
Filed under: History