Title: The Call To 911: Doing Your Best to Remain Calm in an Emergency Event
Author: Lupe Buzo
Publisher: URLink Print & Media
ISBN: 978-1-64753-116-4
Genre: Educational Picture Book
Pages: 20
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Hollywood Book Review
Many examples of life-threatening situations occur in homes when least expected. Such as falling down stairs, or having an accident in the garage, or even noticing someone in your backyard who shouldn’t be there – each of which may require the immediate help of police, fire fighters or an ambulance. Teaching children exactly what to do when it becomes up to them to respond by placing an emergency call to 9-1-1 is a very valuable lesson, and one which needs to be thoroughly explained before any such situation occurs. The Call To 911: Doing Your Best to Remain Calm in an Emergency Event by author Lupe Buzo does just that. In a very precise and organized way the author explains First things to do includ
ing knowing your address in order to tell the 911 operator. Secondly to remain calm as to explain what the emergency is, without shouting or yelling, as it is often hard enough to hear people on a cell phone connection especially with background noise. Then the Third thing to do is stay on the line with the operator and obey their instructions – do not hang up until they tell you to do so. Which brings up another situation; if a call is placed to 911 by mistake, don’t just hang up. Stay on the line to explain to the operator the call was placed by mistake. Nowadays cell phones allow for 911 calls to be made without entering passwords or biometrics to turn on the phone, so wrong 911 calls must be a common occurrence.
The layout of The Call To 911 is done in an excellent way to gain the attention of youngsters by having some, what I would call “adorable” pictures of children in police uniforms, yet still conveying the seriousness of the book’s information. Lupe Buzo has cleverly bordered the pages with the yellow and black “caution tape” artwork, adding a strong reality check to each page. The author finishes with some examples and questions enabling this book to become an interactive, instructional method to drill in the rules to obey in an emergency.
All-in-all, this is a short but very important lesson every child needs to learn, rehearse, and be ready to use should it ever become necessary for them to react to a life-threating emergency requiring first-responders to the rescue. The Call To 911 should be placed on the bookshelves of all children, read occasionally, and who knows — may just be the key to saving somebody’s life someday.