Titanic: Voices from the Disaster

In Titanic: Voices from the Disaster, award-winning author Deborah Hopkinson presents the story of the most legendary maritime disaster of the twentieth century, told through the firsthand accounts of the people who endured it. First published in 2012 by Scholastic Books to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the ill-fated ship's sinking, Titanic brings together a series of compelling voices and vivid archival information that usher the disaster and the drama resoundingly into the present.

The book opens with a foreword in which Hopkinson discusses the enduring legacy of the RMS Titanic and includes a detailed diagram of what the ship actually looked like. For one hundred years, the ship and its story have captured the popular imagination, perhaps for the very reason that first inspired all those ticket buyers to purchase passage on its maiden voyage: It was supposed to be unsinkable. However, this modern ship—"the largest and most luxurious in the world"—would go on to "simply disappear in a matter of hours." As a result of its sinking, the tragic losses of life, and the grand mythos that have sprung up around the doomed voyage, the Titanic, Hopkinson says, has, in a way, made us all amateur historians. It continues to fascinate to this day.

To add to that fascination, Titanic features the first-person accounts of some of the real people who survived its sinking. Among them are ship's stewardess Violet Jessop; American high school student Jack Thayer; nine-year-old Frankie Goldsmith; the wealthy Colonel Archibald Gracie; sailor William Murdoch; and Charlotte Collyer, a young mother journeying to America to start life anew. Their recollections pepper the narrative, providing gripping eyewitness accounts of what transpired on that momentous night. Their stories underscore the epic scale of the ship's sinking through the lens of intimate, individual experience. This was a tragedy that did not discriminate—it affected rich and poor, first class and third class, ship crewman and paying guest—and it would mark each of their lives forever.



The first few chapters cover the ship's construction in Belfast, Ireland; the steps involved in preparing it for its maiden voyage; and its initial launch from Southampton, England. In all, 15,000 workers come together to build the mighty vessel. The ship's sophisticated machinery and technology take ten months to successfully install. A team of twenty horses is the only thing strong enough to pull the fifteen-and-a-half-ton anchor upon delivery to Belfast. Once the building process is complete, workers load all the furnishings, coal, food, and 3,560 lifebelts onboard. Then, there is the cargo, which includes everything from clothing to books, surgical instruments to fabric. One passenger even brings along his Renault car.

After it sets sail, the Titanic encounters four relatively uneventful days on the open seas. Then at 11:40 p.m. on the night of April 14, 1912, the ship strikes an iceberg. By 2:20 a.m., she is completely sunk. The book details the initial impact with the iceberg, the collision that startles passengers awake, the chaotic scrambling for lifeboats, and the attempts at both escape and recovery.

The RMS Carpathia sets course to help the failing ship. It arrives on the scene just an hour and a half after the Titanic's sinking, managing to save the last of the survivors. The book includes a rundown of the necessities Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia puts in place to help the survivors, including an English doctor in the Carpathia's first-class dining room, an Italian doctor in the second-class dining room, and a Hungarian doctor in third-class, as well as the medicines needed to treat the injuries they might encounter, and "coffee, tea, soup, etc., in each saloon."



In the immediate wake of the sinking, the survivors must come to grips with the monumental losses they have experienced. Not only are their physical belongings washed away, but they have also lost thousands of their fellow travelers. Some survivors lose spouses, parents, and children. Others are fortunate enough to have made it out with their loved ones.

From there, the RMS Titanic enters the realm of the mythical. In an epilogue, Hopkinson covers the discovery of the wreckage in 1985 and how pivotal this is for our current understanding of what actually happened on April 14 and 15, 1912.

The book closes with a series of endpapers that add even more human context to the Titanic disaster. There is a list of some of the people—both famous and unknown—who were onboard. There is a comprehensive timeline of the Titanic's lifespan. There is a collection of letters from the survivors rescued by the Carpathia. There is a copy of the final report issued by the British Wreck Commissioner. Hopkinson then reexamines the unorganized lifeboat-launching sequence that only contributed to the loss of life on the Titanic. Finally, there is a statistical recounting of those who lived and those who died because of this colossal tragedy.



Titanic: Voices From the Disaster is suitable for readers ages eight years old and up. It won an Audiofile Award and a Robert F. Silbert Informational Book Award Honor; was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and was named a 2013 ALSC Notable Children's Book.