Aronson, Marc. Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from
2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert. 2011. 144pp.
Lexile: 1070
Aronson combines good
storytelling with complex ideas as he presents the remarkable rescue of 33 trapped
Chilean miners in October of 2010. As
the world watched, international teams tried various means of finding the
miners, who were 2000 feet down, and bringing them to the surface. Readers get a sense of what the miners went
through in the 17 days before they were reached and the following weeks as they
waited to see if the effort would succeed.
Meanwhile, the story also takes place on the surface with different
types of drills, a NASA-designed capsule to bring them to the surface, and
more. Aronson goes beyond description to
analysis, then lays out his process in his author’s note, describing how he
approached a topic on which no books had yet been published. He models his research for his teenage
reader, a highly useful feature for classroom teachers and librarians.
Reading Std #5: Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and/or larger portions of the text relate to each other and the whole. Aronson paces his story in a way that creates suspense around whether and how the miners will be rescued. Have students analyze how he uses the book’s structure and arranges sections to create this effect.
