About the Author

Myron Uhlberg is the award-wining and critically acclaimed author of several children's books. Uhlberg is the first-born son of two deaf parents. His first language was ASL (American Sign Language). After graduating from Brandeis University, he served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He then spent the next forty years in the garment industry. His first book was published when he was sixty-six years old. He has appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation and was featured in the Ken Burns documentary film, Jackie Robinson. He lives in California.

Colin Bootman was born in Trinidad but moved to the United States at the age of seven. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York, he has illustrated numerous books for children, including Almost to Freedom, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book. He lives in New York.

Reviews

★ "A heartrending story of a New Orleans family's experience through Hurricane Katrina. . . Simple, affecting prose and intricate, inspired paintings make this one worth sharing for sure." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This remarkable homage to New Orleans tells of Louis Daniel, named for Armstrong, who leaves his flooded home with his parents and his cornet. . . The oil-on-board paintings of shimmering water and unfocused crowds capture contradictions; both harsh reality and otherworldliness; both the enormity and the intimacy of the event, somehow managing to leave out the horror. Uhlberg's prose does the same" —School Library Journal

★ "Bootman's dramatic oil paintings and the boy's first-person narration provide realistic immediacy as the boy's family makes its way through their flooded neighborhood on "a piece of someone's porch that was floating by." Readers are in for a deeply personal and sometimes uncomfortable look at a disaster whose ramifications are still being felt" —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

★ "The juxtaposition of the understated text and muscular artwork works well. . . A memorable addition to the growing number of books about Hurricane Katrina, this offering personalizes a national tragedy" —Booklist, Starred Review

"A heartrending story of a New Orleans family's experience through Hurricane Katrina. . . Simple, affecting prose and intricate, inspired paintings make this one worth sharing for sure." -Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This remarkable homage to New Orleans tells of Louis Daniel, named for Armstrong, who leaves his flooded home with his parents and his cornet. . . The oil-on-board paintings of shimmering water and unfocused crowds capture contradictions; both harsh reality and otherworldliness; both the enormity and the intimacy of the event, somehow managing to leave out the horror. Uhlberg's prose does the same" -School Library Journal

"Bootman's dramatic oil paintings and the boy's first-person narration provide realistic immediacy as the boy's family makes its way through their flooded neighborhood on "a piece of someone's porch that was floating by." Readers are in for a deeply personal and sometimes uncomfortable look at a disaster whose ramifications are still being felt" -Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"The juxtaposition of the understated text and muscular artwork works well. . . A memorable addition to the growing number of books about Hurricane Katrina, this offering personalizes a national tragedy" -Booklist, Starred Review