Tilly Smith, 11, Named Child of the Year

The French children's newspaper Mon Quotidien has named British schoolgirl Tilly Smith (above) as its Child of the Year 2005.

Why?

Because on the morning of December 26, 2004, while walking on Phuket Island beach, the 10–year–old girl saw "bubbling on the water... and foam sizzling just like in a frying pan," and recognized these as warning signs of a tsunami.

How did she know?

Because just two weeks earlier in her geography class she'd studied tsunamis.

Tilly told her parents and alerted the staff of the Marriott Hotel, where they were staying.

The hotel evacuated its beach just minutes before the killer tsunami struck: it was one of the few on the island to suffer no loss of life.

An estimated 100 people were saved by Tilly's powers of observation, recall, and subsequent prompt action.

And that is why Mon Quotidien named her Child of the Year.

Here's today's Associated Press story.

Girl a Hero of Tsunami

A French children's magazine named as its child of the year a British schoolgirl credited with saving about 100 tourists at a Thai beach when the tsunami struck last year.

The upcoming issue of Mon Quotidien, which hits newsstands today, features a smiling Tilly Smith on its cover.

Smith, now 11, had studied tsunamis in her geography class in Oxshott, a small community just south of London, two weeks before going to Thailand on vacation.

On a morning walk on a Phuket island beach on Dec. 26, 2004, Smith recognized the warning signs that a tsunami was coming when she saw "bubbling on the water . . . and foam sizzling like in a frying pan."

She told her parents and alerted staff at the Marriott Hotel, where they were staying.

The beach was evacuated minutes before waves struck.

The beach was one of the few on Phuket where no one was killed or seriously hurt.

Nearly 400 readers of the magazine, which caters to children aged 10–14, responded to a year-end survey to elect a child who left the greatest mark on 2005.

"If Tilly hadn't been there, the tsunami would have killed more people," said one 10-year-old respondent.

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Tilly (below, with her parents),

sometimes referred to as "The Angel of the Beach," was among 137 Britons attending memorial services in Thailand yesterday, in remembrance of the 5,400 who died.

Perhaps Andrew Kearney, her geography teacher in Oxshott, a small community south of London, deserves a nod as well for making the lesson memorable enough to remain in Tilly's working memory bank.