There were warning signs that the molasses tank would break. The steel sides moaned and groaned. Molasses oozed from its seams. But the people of Boston’s North End—mostly poor immigrants—were powerless to complain to the big molasses company.

On a bright January day in 1919, the tank finally broke and almost three million gallons of molasses rushed out into the neighborhood. At 15 feet tall and 160 feet wide and traveling at 35 miles per hour, the gooey wave was more destructive than any flood of water would have been. Lauren Tarshis tells the riveting story of one child who was swept up in the sticky storm…and lived to tell the tale.