Awesome August Read: Shaken by Eric Walters
About a month ago I was attracted by the bright red bulls-eye on Shaken, a book recently penned by Canadian author Eric Walters. I found this book to be a fantastic eye opening account of the fairly recent earthquake in Haiti. Walters paints a picture of this catastrophic tragedy through the story of his main character Josh, a fifteen year old who has recently experienced a great degree of personal grief himself since he lost his mother a few months before to cancer.
In Shaken, Josh’s dad brings him on a church mission with several other teenagers to help build an orphanage in rural Haiti. Even prior to the earthquake, his experience is an interesting one as they traverse a country that is stricken by many problems. However, when the earthquake hits the danger Josh faces is magnified exponentially as buildings around him crumble, his diabetic friend Naomi runs out of usable insulin and a crime spree brought on by the devastation results in further chaos and disruption. Worst of all, Josh’s father and younger sister are unaccounted for as they had left for Port-au-Prince earlier in the day, the capital of Haiti which incurred unimaginable destruction as a result of the quake. Josh bravely embarks on a lengthy and perilous trip to the country’s capital with Naomi and his new Haitian friend Philippe, in hopes of not only finding new insulin for Naomi, but also to see if the earthquake has claimed the lives of two more members of his immediate family.
I highly recommend this book for all teenage book lovers. It is an extremely well-written fictional account of the disaster that struck Haiti a short while ago and should make everyone appreciative and thankful of the many great basic resources that surround us here in Toronto that oftentimes are taken for granted!
22 thoughts on “Awesome August Read: Shaken by Eric Walters”
wow.. It’s a really nice and interesting book. I’ll read this later on 😀
Ya looks good! thanks for the suggestion
The review is so touching and I think it’s a great idea that the book brings awareness to Haiti. By the way, the cover of the book is also attractive as well. I love books by Eric Walters. I have read Shattered and it was amazing. It was basically about this 15 year old boy who started volunteering for school at a soup kitchen. Later on, he realized that he still wanted to continue helping the poor even after he had completed all his hours. I think the trends in Eric Walters’ writing between Shattered and Shaken are that they both begin with ‘S’, the protagonist is age 15 and both stories are inspiring. I hope to read Shaken if I ever do get a chance.
Sound like a great book because Eric Walters is one of my favourite authors and it sound like an amazing book to read.
If there’s a major disaster… there’s sure to be an Eric Walters book to follow. Good thing he does a good job of handling them well! His pair of books abut 9/11 and the next day are really strong, even if I didn’t love the very end of the first one, We All Fall Down.
Another great book by Eric Walters is Wounded, which I think again deals with a 15 year old protagonist whose dad serves in the Canadian military in Afghanistan. When he returns Marcus discovers some of the symptoms of PTSD first hand as his dad behaves quite oddly upon his return.
This one is considered a Children’s book, but still an amazing read for teens as well…
i read this book a while ago and its an amazing book. if you like eric walters books, then you should also read branded.
I love to read Eric’s book and I’m really interested in reading this book called SHAKEN.
I’m a fan of Eric Walters’ wounded book and I’m really interested in reading this book called SHAKEN.
As my sisters I am really interested in reading Eric’s books such as WAVES and SHAKEN.
I read wounded too. It’s my favourite. 🙂
Great review! Sounds like a good book!
I’ve never read “Shaken” before, but I read “Safe as Houses” by Eric Walters a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. “Safe as Houses” is definitely an interesting read. I look forward to checking out “Shaken”! 🙂
The review looks good! Now I want to go find it at the library so I can read it! 🙂
This is a very great review and the book is sound very interesting! I hope I can read this soon 🙂
Wow ill definitely look this up, i love recountings and especially since this one is fairly recent
It’s a good book and a fast read.
Every review ends with a hold and this is no exception.
I’ve heard really good thoughts about Eric Walters books. By your blog it seems like a really interesting read. I’ll definitely check it out!
Eric Walters was at our school once, he’s really interesting will sure read this book.
This book sounds interesting. i will for sure think about reading it
i love his books!
never heard of this one before.
i shall check it out (:
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