Rescuing Titanic, an illustrated book look at the RMS Carpathia

Often times the story that’s behind the story is as interesting and sometimes more interesting than the main one. Rescuing Titanic, A True Story of Quiet Bravery in the North Atlantic is an illustrated book that takes the line and runs with it. It’s an oversized, illustrated book that looks at the story that third graders and up to know about, but examines the after-effects and how they were dealt with.

While learning about the Titanic isn’t in the syllabus for elementary school, it’s something that most kids know something about by the third grade. The really clever kids will latch onto more facts, iceberg statistics, information about the passengers, and so forth. Rescuing Titanic is a deeper dive into the facts surrounding the rescue of the ship’s passengers that was done by the RMS Carpathia.  She was a much more modest ship but was still large in her own right with a crew of 300 and the capacity to carry hundreds of passengers.

Most importantly, the Carpathia was sailing west to east, whereas the Titanic was sailing east to west. Rescuing Titanic briefly sets up the time period in which all of this happened. It was the golden age of steam travel and crossing the Atlantic Ocean in one of these ships was a huge deal. The crew was regimented and everyone had their duties that were in place to keep the ships comfortable and safe.

From the United States, there were 122 passengers in first class, 41 in second class, and 571 in third class boarding the Carpathia. The book lists some of them by name, as well as key details, like the young woman who had her new Kodak Box Brownie camera with her. It’s at this point in Rescuing Titanic that young readers will start to notice and really appreciate the artwork.

There’s a cut-away view of the Carpathia, its seven floors, and what happened on each of them. The detailed descriptions are set around each illustrated page in a manner that invites readers to casually flow the art.

On Sunday, April 14 at 11:00 pm the Carpathia was making great time as sped across the calm black water. Forty minutes after that the Titanic struck the iceberg and it wasn’t long after that the ship’s crew realized that serious trouble was afoot.

It’s here where the research of the book will intrigue readers. They’ll see a real-time breakdown of when the Titanic’s radio crew communicated with other ships. At 12:25 am the radio operator from the Carpathia found out the seriousness of the SOS that was sent out by the Titanic. They were only 58 nautical miles from their location and at their current speed, it would take them four hours to get there.

Captain Arthur Roston engaged in a plan that puts all of his crew into action. They readied the lifeboats, turned off the ship’s heating so that it could go faster, and asked his crew to do all of these things in silence, so as not to disturb the guests. To get to the course that the Titanic was on, meant that the ship had to alter its course going northwest, which meant colder water and the dangers that brought down the ship whose passengers they were hoping to rescue. 

The illustrations in Rescuing Titanic move the book along effortlessly and in an enjoyable fashion. It’s non-fiction, which can be a tough subject to entice younger readers to engage in, but this has a couple of things in its favor. The main thing is that it’s a very curious book. They know about the Titanic, but they don’t know about the Carpathia, the steamer that was sent out to rescue it. Actually, the RMS Carpathia was one of several ships that received the call to rescue, it’s just that they were the first ones to arrive there. But that’s just one factoid that your elementary school reader will digest, enjoy and share with those around them.

Rescuing Titanic, A True Story of Quiet Bravery in the North Atlantic is by Flora Delargy and available on Wide Eyed Editions, an imprint of Quarto Knows.

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