Dust Bowl!

This new series has a melodramatic name—X-treme Disasters That Changed America—but the writing is solid and the format open and inviting. Starting with Black Sunday, the day a black storm cloud of dirt raced across the Great Plains, Levey does an excellent job of explaining the physical properties of the dust storms that destroyed the country’s midsection as well as the psychological hardships that the blizzards left in their wake. He manages to do all this in short, relatively simple sentences that are bolstered by an attractive, accessible design. Interesting, crisply reproduced photographs, sometimes laid out to resemble an album, appear in both black-and-white and evocative sepia tones. A glossary, a bibliography, and a list of Web sites are appended. One of the best series to come along recently, X-treme Disasters also includes such titles as Earthquake! The 1906 San Francisco Nightmare, and Tornado! The 1974 Super Outbreak.