A gripping and personal story about one girl's experience of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath.
Lyla has just started her second year of high school when a magnitude 6.3 earthquake shakes Christchurch to pieces. Devastation is everywhere. While her police officer mother and trauma nurse father respond to the disaster, Lyla puts on a brave face, opening their home to neighbours and leading the community clean-up. But soon she discovers that it's not only familiar buildings and landscapes that have vanished - it's friends and acquaintances too. As the earth keeps shaking day after day, can Lyla find a way to cope with her new reality?
Awards
Notable Book Storylines New Zealand Children's Trust 2019
Shortlisted Best Children's Book, NZ Booklovers Award 2019
Shortlisted Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction, NZ Children's Book Awards 2018
Behind The Book…
Allen & Unwin (Australia) contacted me to ask if I’d write a book based on the Christchurch earthquakes as they were publishing a series about natural disasters. I’ve only experienced comparatively minor quakes so I had to do a lot of research to try and find out what being in those huge quakes would be like.
- Fleur Beale
Reviews For Lyla: Through My Eyes - Natural Disaster Zones
Lyla is a fantastic and moving insight into the life of an extremely resilient (yes, I said it), albeit fictional, young woman. This is another compassionate, engrossing read from one of New Zealand’s best young people’s writers.
- Tiffany, The Reader
Reading this book has brought it home to me what it must have been like in a way that no news report or documentary has managed to do. That's the power of Fleur's writing and all the emotion she builds into it.
- Sue, GoodReads
Lyla’s story is a powerful tale of what the youth of Canterbury endured, and is testament to the strength and love that came from the earthquake.
- Sylvia, TearAway Magazine
Honest, heart wrenching story of what life was like for people living through the Christchurch earthquakes, through the eyes of a teenage girl. I found this book moving and I was swept along with the carnage, I hated putting it down (weekend housework!) as I felt like I was abandoning friends, in their time of need.
- Sheryn, GoodReads