“Terrifying and often vivid. . . . Laskin skillfully weaves together a clear report and explanation of the meteorological event with harrowing accounts of slow death, loss, and, survival.”—Atlantic Monthly

On the afternoon of January 12, 1888, thousands of people, including many young schoolchildren, were caught out on the prairies of Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota when a ferocious blizzard exploded without warning out of the northwest. It quickly became the fiercest, deadliest storm ever to hit the region. Hundreds perished, many of them just a few feet from shelter.

With the storm as its dramatic, heartbreaking focal point, The Children’s Blizzard tells the story of a particularly poignant moment in American history, when the early hopes of the pioneers were blasted by the bitter realities of their harsh environment.