“In the aftermath of disastrous 1966 Arno River floods in Florence, a group of visiting students—international but many from Florida State University—voluntarily joined in relief efforts by slogging through the dangerous muck to rescue books from the national library. Lee’s scenes of tumultuous waves washing down city streets amply convey a sense of the widespread devastation to go with Greenwald’s vivid descriptions of the wreckage: “Mud, mud, mud. / Slimy, sticky, stinky mud. / Everywhere. / Everything covered in mud.” The volunteers’ dedication comes through clearly, too (“Arms and legs plunged into gooeyness. / Noses burned with every chemical breath. / Faces almost touched the mud. / Searching.”), as they form human chains to carry volumes to safety and hang them up to dry. Their effort was just part of a much larger one, but as the author notes in her more-detailed afterword, some of these “Mud Angels” came back 50 years later and were still treated like “rock stars.”

A true episode worth commemorating.”