Earthquake! The Diary of Katie Bourke, Napier, 1930-31 - Janine McVeagh

A title from the 'My Story' series from Scholastic.
This book gives you an insight into the Great Depression and the Napier earthquake from the viewpoint of an 11-year-old girl. Katie is the youngest of a family living in Napier in 1930. Her father has just died and left her mother to care for the family. Katie's family is poor but not as poor as others in the story. This book is easy to read and gives the reader a feeling of what life was like for a girl living in those times. It is very easy to compare their circumstances with ours today. While I have read books about the earthquake before, this is the first that has made me think about the fact that this event occurred during the Great Depression and how it might have been to have been struggling then have this happen. On the 'up' side (they say every cloud has a silver lining???), it did create some long term employment for the men in the area.