Lauren Tarshis has been writing these since 2010, and there are now twenty-six of them plus a separate line of graphic novels that renumbers from one. That second count is where most of the confusion comes from: a child asking for “number eleven” could mean the Great Chicago Fire or the Great Molasses Flood, depending on which shelf they were looking at.

Here is the whole series in order, both formats, and the short answer on whether the order matters.

The short answer

It does not matter. Every book stands completely alone — different child, different disaster, different year — so a reader can start anywhere. Start with whichever event they already find interesting. If nothing in particular grabs them, the Titanic is the first one written and still the most requested.

Do you have to read them in order?

No. There is no running plot and no returning narrator. The only thing the numbering tells you is publication order, which is mostly useful for spotting which ones you have not read yet. Each book runs around 110 pages, opens in the middle of the disaster, then backs up to explain how the narrator got there, and ends with several pages of real history.

The one genuine reason to care about order is the graphic novels, because their numbers do not line up with the originals at all.

Every I Survived book in order

  1. I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
  2. I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916
  3. I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005
  4. I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
  5. I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
  6. I Survived the Attacks of September 11th, 2001
  7. I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
  8. I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011
  9. I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944
  10. I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79
  11. I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871
  12. I Survived the Joplin Tornado, 2011
  13. I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937
  14. I Survived the Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 1980
  15. I Survived the American Revolution, 1776
  16. I Survived the Children’s Blizzard, 1888
  17. I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967
  18. I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944
  19. I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919
  20. I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018
  21. I Survived the Galveston Hurricane, 1900
  22. I Survived the Wellington Avalanche, 1910
  23. I Survived the Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964
  24. I Survived the Black Death, 1348
  25. I Survived the Dust Bowl, 1935
  26. I Survived the Night of the Lions, 2025

The graphic novels, in their own order

These are adaptations of books that already exist, not new stories, and they are numbered separately from one. Graphic novel 3, for example, is the Nazi Invasion — which is novel 9. So a reader working through both formats will find themselves rereading in a different order, and a parent buying “the next one” should check the format before the number.

  1. I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
  2. I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916
  3. I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944
  4. I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001
  5. I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967
  6. I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005
  7. I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871
  8. I Survived the American Revolution, 1776
  9. I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944
  10. I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79
  11. I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919
  12. I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011
  13. I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018
  14. I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
  15. I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937
  16. I Survived the Joplin Tornado, 2011

Which one to start with

For a child who already likes a subject, follow the subject: sharks, dinosaurs of a sort, volcanoes, hurricanes, wolves. For a reluctant reader, the graphic novels are the easier entry — same story, far less text, and no sense of having been given a baby book. For a class, the Japanese Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina volumes are the two that most often lead somewhere useful afterwards.

A note on the history

Every book ends with a factual section, and Tarshis is careful about which details she invents. The narrators are fictional; the events, the timelines and most of the surrounding people are not. That back matter is a large part of why these work as a bridge from reading for fun into reading for interest.

Keep browsing

Every book above has a page in our catalog. For more series with this many volumes in front of a reader, see our Magic Tree House reading order or the James Patterson middle grade reading order. If the graphic novels are the draw, see graphic novels for tweens, and if this is a conversion project, books for reluctant readers.