★ "A heartrending story of a New Orleans family's experience through Hurricane Katrina. . . Simple, affecting prose and intricate, inspired paintings make this one worth sharing for sure." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This remarkable homage to New Orleans tells of Louis Daniel, named for Armstrong, who leaves his flooded home with his parents and his cornet. . . The oil-on-board paintings of shimmering water and unfocused crowds capture contradictions; both harsh reality and otherworldliness; both the enormity and the intimacy of the event, somehow managing to leave out the horror. Uhlberg's prose does the same" —School Library Journal

★ "Bootman's dramatic oil paintings and the boy's first-person narration provide realistic immediacy as the boy's family makes its way through their flooded neighborhood on "a piece of someone's porch that was floating by." Readers are in for a deeply personal and sometimes uncomfortable look at a disaster whose ramifications are still being felt" —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

★ "The juxtaposition of the understated text and muscular artwork works well. . . A memorable addition to the growing number of books about Hurricane Katrina, this offering personalizes a national tragedy" —Booklist, Starred Review