THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD, the new novel by New York Times bestselling author Melanie Benjamin, tells a story of courage on the American prairie, inspired by actual events. On the afternoon of January 12, 1888—a day that had dawned surprisingly warm—a ferocious storm hit the Great Plains right as school was letting out. It would come to be known as “The Children’s Blizzard,” since hardest hit were the schoolchildren in the one-room prairie schoolhouses, and their teachers—children themselves, barely out of the schoolroom—who had to make life and death decisions in an instant. Should they let their pupils make a run for it, hoping they would make it home in time? Or keep them there and risk freezing to death in poorly insulated shacks, hoping for eventual rescue? Published by Delacorte Press,THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD unfolds through the perspectives of two sisters who make vastly different choices— and find their destinies changed irrevocably, forever labeled for their actions.

In this Behind the Pages Igloo feature, Melanie Benjamin shares what inspired her to write this novel as well as the research and process involved in bringing the book to fruition: Continue reading →