Death Wind

by William Bell

Allie's life has just taken a turn for the worse; not only do her parents fight all the time, but she is failing more classes than not and now she thinks she might be pregnant. Unable to face up to her parents she decides to run away. She hooks up with her old friend Razz, a professional skateboarder, and goes on the road. Razz is ranked number one but constant confrontations with the challenger Slash put Allie in some dangerous situations. With the rivalry heating up, Razz and Allie head toward home--right into the path of a fierce tornado. To survive in the horror and destruction that follow the storm, Allie has to call on an inner strength she didn't know she had.

Also available in Spanish.

Genres: Banned Books, Young Adult, Fiction, Teen, Book Club

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

William Bell is an award-winning author of more than a dozen books for young adults.

Born in Toronto, Ontario in 1945, he has been a high school English teacher and department head, and an instructor at the Harbin University of Science and Technology, the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, and the University of British Columbia.

Reviews

[Raeanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Death Wind by William Bell is a fantastic book in the Orca Soundings series. It is about a teen who thinks shes pregnant and she is also failing school so she runs away with her a good friend of hers. Then after awhile her friend forces her to go back and tell her parents about her failing classes and maybe pregnant. On there way back they run into a tornado a few miles away from her house and they're van staled out. They see the tornado go right through her neighborhood and she watches her house get swept away by the tornado. Now I don't wanna give away the ending but all I'm trying to say is that it is a very good book. It is a very quick read and a book that you won't wanna put down. I would definetly recommend this book to teenagers.

[Cole Benincase · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an ok book that kept you on the edge of your seat. I never knew what was coming next. Its is about a girl named Allie who runs away from home because her parents never stop fighting. She runs away with a boy named Razz who is a skater. They go to one of his skate meets where he is told at the end when he wins he needs to go back to the town their from. As they arrive a tornado strikes the town and Allie learns what has just happened to her house...

[Jessie A]

Fue un libro facil a leer pero con una tema importante. Que despues de hacer unas decisiones malas, puedes permanecer una buena persona si correctas tus errores y empiezas a correctar tus acciones. Allie aprenda a ayudar personas mas que ella misma cuando un tornado pega a su comunidad y encuentra que todos necesitan ayuda. Fue emocionante cuando entro a una casa en fuego para rescatar a un bebé atrapado. En fin, me gusto el libro y lo recomendaria a mis amigos.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review: https://hiplibrariansbookblog.com/200...

[Jacob Dickie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really like this book it wasn't very interesting in many ways because it didn't really meet the points of what I thought the book would be like it took a while to become interesting

[Genesis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death Wind by William Bell is a science fiction book where the story starts off by introducing the main character Allie. Allie attends high school. She was a straight A student and had even been nicknamed "Brainy" by her childhood friend, Razz. Allie was going through a tough time, everything had come to her all at once. I chose to read this book because the synopsis led me to think what was going to happen next was going to be something “crazy”. Every time I would go into a new chapter I didn’t want to detach myself from the book because it had me hooked.

In the beginning of the story, Allie had a lot of things stressing her out. Jack, her boyfriend had broken up with her a week or two ago. She received her report card that showed how she had failed half of her classes. And she was also several days late for her period which had led her to think she was pregnant. With her parents fighting all the time, she couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to run away. Razz, her childhood friend is a skateboarding champion and was beginning his seasonal tour, he invited Allie to join him, and Allie left a note for her parents to let them know she had run away. A couple days later they head back to their home town because Razz had a television interview. But on their way home, a tornado is happening in her neighborhood and made her worry about her parents which led her to go on an adventure to find them.

Overall this book was a good start but ended too soon. A lot of questions were left when I finished this book such as “was she even pregnant?” And if she was “what happened with Jack?” I think the ending is just a clumped mess and needed to be extended more it seemed rushed like what I do when I’m last minute writing an essay… it’s that kind of book that has a good start but bad ending.

[Bianca Cierny · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book "Death Wind," our main character is Allie, she has been going through some major problems lately. Allie had been not keeping up with school and she believes that she may be pregnant. On top of all of that, her parents are fighting non-stop and that causes Allie to run away with an old friend, Razz. On their journey, Allie has agreed to go with Razz on a professional skateboarding tournament, where they both meet Razz's enemy, Slammer. Allie is feeling guilty inside because of her choice on running away so she decides to go back home, but before that happens they're in danger. A massive tornado hits their home town, destroying everything in its path. An important quote that I chose from this novel was when Allie was telling her parents about what had all happened, "When she was finished, she was crying. And she felt worthless." This quote is meaningful to me because it shows how hard a persons life can be. Also, it shows how people can struggle through dangerous and sad situations.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a high school teacher and I read Death Wind with some of my grade 9 students. It is a typical "high-interest/low vocab" book for young people who normally don't like reading, and it did hold their interest. It was about a teenage girl who is struggling with her family life and other things; she runs away from home and then returns just in time to experience the infamous tornado that swept through Barrie, ON in the mid 1980s. The book had lots of interesting details about the Barrie tornado and some good life lessons for young readers. Overall, I thought it was a good young adult book for the audience it was aimed at, but it is not in the upper tier of those books.

[Brenda Valverde · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts where a girl is tired of seeing her parents fight so often. She is looking for a way to get out of her house. She calls one of her boy friends and she asked him if she can go with him. He said yes and he went to pick her up at a park that is in the corner of her house. The girl leaves a letter to her parents telling them that she ran away from their house. The girls friend is a skateboarder. They went to the place where he does his games. He has been a champion because he skates so good.

[Alejo Fajardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

«Death wind» es un libro corto en el cual se puede analizar cómo la mente humana trabaja en una situación extremadamente peligrosa y de alta ayuda como lo es un desastre natural.

Encontrándonos con nuestra protagonista principal, quien decide irse con su novio y deja un aviso en la casa de sus padres. Al estar lejos de casa piensa en lo que está sucediendo con su vida y en qué tal vez es una pésima idea haberse ido sin decirles hacia dónde se dirigía.

Todo cambia cuando un tornado azota el area en dónde ella vive.

Un libro lleno de intriga, de sentimientos puros, de esas cosas que hacemos por impulso y que no las pensamos bien antes de ejecutarlas. Esa adrenalina en un momento de catástrofe y la necedad de hacer lo posible para salvar a los demás.

Death wind es un libro gigante lleno de aprendizajes y es un libro correcto para verle ese sentido a la vida que llevamos tratando de encontrar y también de saber cómo es estar presente durante un tornado.

[DeCarlos Watt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very interesting so I gave it 10/10. I really enjoyed the way the plot twist towards the end because it made it a thrilling story. My favorite part of the book was when they were on their way back to do a interview for Razz. My least favorite part was when Allie stayed to help and answer calls instead of going out and helping Razz look around. I feel that would have made the story by far more interesting. This story definitely deserves a five star rating because all the creativity and plot twist that was mentioned in the story. I really like the imagery in this story how he explained when Slammer had gotten taken up by the tornado. I could picture everything in the story. The theme comes from the lesson Allie learned about appreciating her parents. People say "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," which is what Allie learned. It wasn't scary but it had me to the edge of my seat as every chapter it became better and better.

[Susan Forsgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple, short on detail, and easy to read for those students who need a "Book Report", yesterday.

[Benjamin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Low vocab fast track book

[Jarod Felton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jarod Felton
January 18, 2016


Goodreads
Death Wind is a book that takes you through a life of Allie as she needs to get away from it all. Allie starts off with her life in pieces, her life has three major problems. One is that her parents fight all of the time the second is that she is failing her classes ,and worse of all she thinks that she might be pregnant. Not being able to bring all of this to her parents she decides to run away. Allie decided to go with her friend Razz to a skateboarding event where Razz competes and is the best. When they are both there Razz and Allie are confronted by Slash. Slash is Razz's number one competition ,and Slash hold a grudge over Razz always beating him. Razz and Slash get into a fight ,but Razz wins with no problem. Later in the night Razz tells Allie that they have to go back to there home town to shoot a commercial with Slash for his sponsors. Allie is split by this now she is having second thoughts of running away and the other half is wanting to go back to her parents. On the way back town in the morning there is a storm not just a little storm to the point where they find a tornado. At the time not knowing what it is the tornado passes right over them tearing the car apart ,and them just barely making it away. After the tornado passed over they look ,and see that it is heading right for Allie's parents house.Allie is devastated by the fact her parents could die ,and the ending between them wasn't as she would have wanted it. She has to fight internal and external battles with her problems from before ,and now finding her parents. I would give this book a 3 out of 5 star review.

[Driss Sekkat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character of the book is Allie. She is a teenage girl and now she finds herself in the turing point of her life. She cant support the her daily life with here parents fighting. She was already failing 3 class's. Her boyfriend dumped her two weeks after she was failing and she missed here periods. She had felt that it is to dificult to live at home so she decides to escape with a 17 year old professional skateboarder. They had obstacles to overcome, but they did not expect the storm that was going to happen.

If I would have changed the name of the book. I would have called it The Escaping because it talks about a girl that escaped. I would also call it The escaping because the Death wind is not very good explained for the picture. What I could have learned about this persons life is that she struggled a lot while the story and she had to deal with a lot of decisions, school, and the parents. Finally, I had a question when I read the back of the book was why didn't she did not ask the parents to stop fighting. Also why dont they have a good talk so that they calm down.

I would reccomend this book to people who like sad stories. After that, I would recomend this book from 4-7 because this book is a little to easy. Therefore, this book is good and I think my friends will like it. Also, I would also reccomend it to people who like reading short stories and good. Finally, this book is good and I hope the people who like sad stories or not short stories will like this book.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the books I've read in the ORCA Soundings series (Riley Park,Crush,Running the Risk, Home Invasion, Down) this was a bit below par. The best titles in this series ("Riley Park," "Home Invasion," and "Down") capture character in an easily readable format, without feeling simple and dull.

There is plenty of action here as Canadian teen Allie contemplates her pregnancy and failing report card, runs away from home with her skater pal, is almost assaulted, and nearly dies in a massive tornado. Perhaps that's a strength: Allie's pregnancy is a piece of the story and not the focus, and her friendship with skater Razz never dips into romance.

However, the story wraps up on a note of optimism that feels a bit too much like a Family Chanel TV show, and throughout the book Allie isn't quite real enough. Also, this 2002 title shows its age, with references to "Walkmans" and lack of communication that cell phones make unlikely.

[Yassine El · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of the book is “Death Wind” and the author is William Bell. The main character in the story is Allie and Razz. The situation of the story is that Allies parents are always fighting and insulting each other and Allie died at the end of the story because she got caught by a tornado and the conflict is man vs. nature and man vs. self. The rising action of the story is when Allie and her friend took a van and went another small village and the climax is when the tornado begins to pass by the village. The conflict is not resolved because she dies at the end.


I know that this book is non-fiction because there are real thing and there is not a mouse that speaks or a dragon. My favorite part in the book is when they took the van and went far away because they were fighting in the car and having so much fun. The question is why is Allie so mean sometimes? The topic is important because it shows the whole book and it is a curious topic.


My favorite part of the story is when they took the van and went far away because they were fighting in the car and having so much fun. My least favorite part is when Allie start talking to Razz. I would really like to read another book written by this author William Bell because I like his creative thought of making book and I also like how he explain each details. I would recommend this book to 4th and 5th graders because this book could show them what can a tornado do and how does it feel to have parents that always fight.

[Kendra Horn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a girl named Allie. Allies parents are always fighting. When Allie gets bad grades, she doesn't want to tell her parents. Afraid they will be even more mad. She then decides to run away with her friend named Razz. They go to a skateboarding competition. At the competition they meet a boy named Slammer who jabs Allie in the stomach. He does not leave a very good impression on them. When the contest is over, they head back home. Allie is afraid of what her parents are going to say to her after running away. When they are close to allies home, Allie can't wait to see her parents and say sorry because she feels bad for them. She feels bad that she ran away without telling them. All of a sudden, tornado comes toward them. They are freaking out. Then the tornado takes a sharp turn and heads down Allies street. "My parents" Allie screams. The take off, running down the street chasing after the tornado. After the tornado passes, Allies house is left to nothing but a wall. She does not know where her parents are. They run to the school which is turned into a shelter, to see if her parents are there. On the way, Allie saves a baby that is stuck in a small corner. At the school, Allie hears that her parents are safe at the hospital and will survive. Allie goes to the hospital and everything is cleared up between Allie and her parents.

[Alanoud · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book it just an ok book, First sentence I read was ” Allie’s parents were arguing again “. I thought about it a lot, why is her parent’s argue a lot?. From that point I realized there is a story just behind that sentence.....but whats it?.In general each one of us get tired of people who argue around us or with us. Does the weather effects us? if though is does how it can effect us?. Anything we have or we see can leave something insides us, and maybe it doesn’t go away. Allie’s parent always argue and they have problems with each other and that makes them to be carless about Allie, they think she is ok, she have no problem, they think she is doing ok in school. But all that wasn’t true, no one doesn’t have problems. As they have problems she do too. they were focused on their selfs, but not her. Every time they try to see whats wrong with her? and why she is down, they argue too. If one problem didn't get solve obviously there is another problem going follow by after it.
Allis was really scared about if her parent died. At the end of the book it talks about how she found her parent at the hospital, and I think the ending was sad because she told her family about her classes and how she ran away from the house

[Donovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was very good..it all starts with this girl and shes gotten herself into a bind..so looking for a way out she runs off with one of her friends who is a pro skater and they go all over the place and meet different people...at one point in the book her friend runs into his rival and it turns physical...her friends rival eventually gets beat up and they all leave...so then their on their way back to do a tv show shooting and on the way back they run into a bad storm...one of them ends up getting sucked up by a twister and that same twister ends up destroying their hometown...

this is a very good book and i would reccomend it to alot of teenagers because it is something we can relate to like having trouble at school and having trouble with boyfriends and with girlfriends...so if your a teenager i would definately reccomend this book to you

[Zaine]

This book was pretty good. It starts with this girl who's looking for a way out of here home life so she runs off with one of her friends who is a pro skater and they go all over the place and meet different people. At one point in the book her friend runs into his rival and they start to physically fight each other. Her friends rival eventually gets beat up and they all leave. Then their on their way back to do a tv show shooting and on there way they run into a bad storm. One of them ends up getting sucked up by a twister and that same twister ends up destroying their hometown.
This is a very good book and If I had to rate it from 1-10 it would be a strong 8. I would recommend it to teenagers because it is something they can relate to like having trouble at school and having trouble with something at there home life.

[Nour Alshurafa · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I read Death Wind I really like this book. I like how the main character went though hard situation. It was a tough storm they called it the death storm. Allison failed her three classes and she is scared to tell her parent because she called them the 4 red dots, so she finally decided to run a way. But the story tell more detail about how she ran away. About the storm their house destroyed from the storm and she couldn't find her parent in the house, so she started to look for them, and she wished that she didn't do what she is not suppose too, she was really scared about if her parent died. At the end of the book it talks about how she found her parent at the hospital, and I think the ending was sad because she told her family about her classes and how she ran away from the house.

[Fullerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book is an adventure and a journey that can show that you can't run away for your problems.
This a great book but to short. It starts out with the main charater, Allie, that has a problem with an old boyfriend and thinks that she is pregnent. She also has failing grades in three of her classes and decides to run away with her friend , though a regional skateboarding compition. After the compition when driving back home a tornado hits there town and leaves her looking for her family in the wreakage.
I overall give this book a 4 out of 5 because it is a great short story, but the only one reason that it is flawed is because it just is to short to tell the whole story in my opinion. It also is a good story because it is not a hppy like alot of oothers.

[Chase Hosack · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book Death Wind written by William Bell, The main character Allie is faced with a decision. Her decision is to stay at home or run away. She plans to run away with her friend Razz. Razz is a skateboarder who does many competitions. On the way home from a competition Allie and Razz face a huge tornado. The tornado turns the town and Allies life upside down. Now Allie is forced to made a even more difficult decisions to make.


The reason I like this Book is the fact that it was easy to comprehend. Also, because it is intense and makes you want to read more and more. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes intense books.

[Chris Pond · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book "Death Wind' by William Bell an alright book. This book is about a girl who is struggling in life with grades and with parents always arguing and now she thinks she might be pregnant. She decides to go on a skateboarding tour with one of her friends (Razz).Then after her friend wins in all the activities they head back home but she isn't sure if she wants to go home and face her parents just yet.Then a huge tornado destroys her home town on the way back. now all she is thinking is getting home and finding her parents but when she gets home her house is destroyed. and the story goes on from that point.

[Chadley Git-R-Dun Renfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a girl who is struggling in life with grades parents etc and now she thinks she might be pregnant! So she decides to to on a skateboarding tour with one of her guy friends.Then after her freind placing 1st in all the activities they head back home but she isn't sure if she wants to go home and face her parents just yet until a terrible f4 tornado destroys her home town on the way back. now all thats on her mind is getting home and finding her parents but when she gets home her house is no longer there.

[Jeeoh Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book “Death wind” by William Bell .I enjoyed this story, because it has an interesting plot. I didn't feel bored while reading the book. But I didn't enjoy the type of language. Because it contains a lot of bad words, and when they talked, they beat around the bush. I found it hard to understand. I think someone who likes the type of adventure and story about teenagers, they will like this book. Ii seems protagonist is getting better and beat the adversity, because she face to many problems. The lesson seem most evident is help each others.

[Danny Barman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an alright book about a girl that leaves her home and goes on a skateboarding tour with her old friend RAZZ. As they are on it a bog storms in coming, and really heavy winds are coming, too. Allie is deciding whether to go back home or stay with RAZZ during this horrible storm. When she goes back home she finds out he parents are missing. Allie has to go find her parents. There is a lot of suspence in this book.

[Treye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have mutch to say other than it was good!I like the way the author, William Bell,took a real-life experience and made it an interesting novel.
DeathWindtells how natural desasters,tornados,affect our everyday lives.
Not only natural desaters,this book petains to all hard ships we go through.It shows how we as people have to recover from our problems nomatter what they may be.
If you want a book not only to pass the time, but to be interesting,READ THIS BOOK!

[Denish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about allie who has 4 problems in her life and she didn't wanted to tell her parents so she ran away with this best friend Razz who was profesional skateboarder and they both go to the competition and finally Razz won so he has to go back to the house for interview and on their way they find tornado which passed his house and allie wants to go back home and she find out that her parents are missing and the story goes on. I like this book.