All Thirteen, The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team
All Thirteen, The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team
by Christina Soontornvat
by Christina Soontornvat
Embedded Files
D I S C U S S I O N Leader: Listen to the Author read from this title and talk about the STEM benefits.
D I S C U S S I O N Leader: What inspired so many awards for this 2021 award-winning nonfiction project?
image © ABC News
C O N N E C T O R to T E X T and Society
Comparing Conflicts + Complications Hallmark to Great Writing
Comparing Conflicts + Complications Hallmark to Great Writing
What is there to say when a book develops a story with care and confidence? What's impressive about this book is that there's loads of great STEM to help the reader understand what was at stake for 12 kids and their coach trapped in the Tham La----- s. well as how crazy complicated this rescue would be thanks to being in the rainy season.
This book, while completely different in subject matter did see a reflection of the style in The 57 Bus. It makes me wonder if it wasn't used as a mentor text. In All Thirteen, it's written in third-person omniscient because we travel as reader from rescuers, to coach perspective, to kid's challenges, and this is interrupted by great nonfiction studies of why limestone creates rivers, rapids, that run through Karst Caves and the data about monsoons and well-trained divers (how open water divers differ from cave divers) as well as a discloser of the risks. All of these things help heighten the rising action of this story. In the same vein, The 57 Bus shares Richard's situations and struggles, flips to Sasha's story, and interrupts this with a great journalistic sharing of information about all aspects of this situation: the LGBTQ struggles, proper pronouns, statistics about black youth incarceration, and the challenges of representing them.
What's clear is that in both stories, there's twists and complications.
D I S C U S S I O N
Why could divers not reach the boys in their first attempt?
What did the coach do to try to find a way out?
Why did he turn back? Do you agree with his decision, and why?
I L L U S T R A T O R discussion
Visuals Add to Story: Consider Shifts from Books to Video
Visuals Add to Story: Consider Shifts from Books to Video
After we read this story together in class, we hit pause to view the ending on video. It was really intense to watch the visuals: too tight cave, the final seconds of the rescue and witnessing the massive flooding, the currents, and seeing the boys huddled together in such a small space on camera. The most remarkable things is likely the fact that the cave completely flooded as the rescuers were exiting. if they had not decided to get them out, right when they did, the boys would not have made it.
D I S C U S S I O N
What would you do if you found yourself in the Thai soccer boys' situation?
How would you remain calm, take you mind off food, feel about being trapped in that small space?
C O N N E C T O R discussion: T E X T to T E X T, T E X T to Students
CNN - Thai Cave Rescue
CNN - Thai Cave Rescue
NPR -
NPR -
C O N N E C T O R discussion: T E X T to GimKit Live Game
C O N N E C T O R discussion: T E X T to Self: Hosted Writing Craft Webinars and Courses About Writing Nonfiction
KidLit College Nonfiction Discussions, Webinars, Classes
KidLit College Nonfiction Discussions, Webinars, Classes
I've hosted courses online for professional authors about nonfiction books like this one. Featured here is a class that Candy Fleming & Eric Rohmann did with me at KidLit College. As you know, Candy is Sibert Medal Winner, twice: Honeybee, a project she worked on with Eric won this
Candace Fleming, Sibert Medalist for Honeybee. Eric Rohmann, illustrator.
C O N N E C T O R: T E X T to Students
Students As Reference Gurus
Students As Reference Gurus
This year in Literacy, we had students read All Thirteen, Review half of the Thai Cave Rescue Documentary, and then I asked them to do a Newsela assignment, based on this story. What happened was quite funny. They actually would cross off the wrong answers based on their knowledge of other resources.
We then asked students to search for additional information online: An interview with Ellen Degeneres, as well as BBC, NPR, CNN newscasts and articles and report on these to the class, using GimKit Ink.
I just found it really inspiring that they experienced a "FLIP" approach to research where they understood what it felt like to become more of an authority on a topic. Some of the articles were lacking specificity and details that were found in All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat. They were enlightened by the information they read about in All Thirteen, but then saw real footage about it in the Thai Cave Rescue Documentary.
It was, overall, a great learning experience. It was fun for students to discover that they can become subject-matter experts through research. It was a great experience all the way around. All 95 students wrote an article on this topic to contribute to our conversation.
Reference
Discovery UK. (January 19, 2019). How Divers Successfully Saved 12 Thai Boys Trapped in A Cave / Operation Thai Cave Rescue. YouTube.com. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/bx8VWjiNaXw.
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