The Hindenburg disaster, 1937

The latest entry in the I Survived series finds 11-year-old Hugo, his family, and a spy aboard the ill-fated Hindenburg on its final journey. Boarding in Frankfurt on the way home from a long stay in Kenya, Hugo is impressed by the craft's size, its smooth flight, and its luxury. A friendly fellow passenger introduces him to her father, Mr. Merrick, who works for the Hindenburg's owners and conducts a tour of the huge vessel. The trip turns out to be anything but routine as Hugo discovers that Mr. Merrick is the quarry of a spy-hunting Nazi officer; thunderstorms over the U.S. coast cause delays; and, of course, a sudden, massive conflagration sends Hugo frantically leaping for the ground amid showers of burning wreckage, not knowing whether his family has survived. Occasional spot art supplements the famous photo of the Hindenburg in flames, and the author closes with a historical summary and additional resources on the zeppelin's structure, its career, and how its catastrophic destruction changed the history of air travel.--Peters, John Copyright 2016 Booklist

The latest entry in the I Survived series finds 11-year-old Hugo, his family, and a spy aboard the ill-fated Hindenburg on its final journey. Boarding in Frankfurt on the way home from a long stay in Kenya, Hugo is impressed by the craft's size, its smooth flight, and its luxury. A friendly fellow passenger introduces him to her father, Mr. Merrick, who works for the Hindenburg's owners and conducts a tour of the huge vessel. The trip turns out to be anything but routine as Hugo discovers that Mr. Merrick is the quarry of a spy-hunting Nazi officer; thunderstorms over the U.S. coast cause delays; and, of course, a sudden, massive conflagration sends Hugo frantically leaping for the ground amid showers of burning wreckage, not knowing whether his family has survived. Occasional spot art supplements the famous photo of the Hindenburg in flames, and the author closes with a historical summary and additional resources on the zeppelin's structure, its career, and how its catastrophic destruction changed the history of air travel. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.