This was the first book I've read in this series. Good to keep in mind for kids who are seeking action/adventure or exciting books. ( )

Jess and her best friends, twins Eddie and Sam, have always lived in the shadow of a beautiful mountain that they loved. But when earthquakes start happening around them, they learn that the mountain is actually a volcano -- and it could be ready to erupt any day now!

So for many years now, I've been seeing these "I Survive" books fly off the shelves at libraries and have wondered what makes them so great that kids love them immensely. I decided to download several e-book titles to evaluate them, selecting some books with events I knew a decent amount about already, events I knew a little bit about already, and events I really didn't know anything about previously. This book fits somewhere in between the second and third category. I recall hearing about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, but didn't really know many particulars.

I found this title a little harder to get into than the others I read in the series so far. I'm not sure why, but it didn't really seem to have the same 'oomph.' The characters were kind of flat in my opinion, and somehow it never quite seemed like the fast-paced action/adventure story it promised to be. For some reason, I just never really felt invested in the story. Occasional illustrations are not strictly necessary to the story, but they don't hurt either.

Apparently, the first 13 books in the series before this never featured a female protagonist. (I read them in no sort of order so I hadn't realized that.) Tarshis gives a sort of BS reason for this: "it always seemed to me that there were more books for girls like my own daughter, Valerie, than for boys like my sons." I really not sure on what planet that's true. There are PLENTY of male-centered stories, whether they are written by men or simply feature a male protagonist. Even when we're talking about animal stories, the main characters (and sometimes ALL the characters) are given a male name or pronoun. So I'm not buying that line at all. However, she sort of redeems herself by noting, "And really, my books are not about boys or girls, are they? They're about young people who go through difficult and frightening experiences and discover their inner strength."

The only other attempt at diversity in this book is through the character of Dr. Morales; when he first appears on the page, he is described as "a man [who] had dark brown skin and curly hair and looked to be about Mom's age." This is a clunky way to get any non-white character into the story and it presumes that white skin is the 'default' that doesn't need to be described, unlike for people of color.

The backmatter was the most interesting part of the book in my opinion. Here there are tons of facts about Mt. St. Helens, and I learned far more in a few pages here than in all the rest of the book. Tarshis notes how it was "one of the most environmentally destructive [disasters] in world history," but because the number of human deaths was relatively low, it tends to be forgotten about or looked over when talking about natural disasters. ( )

I great way to catch student's interest in learning about history. The author takes real historical facts about an event and adds them in a fictional story line.

We got three books from this series for my nephew but I hadn't read them until now. (Warning--spoilers may follow)

*****

The author reveals that this is one of the first books she wrote with a female protagonist. Her goal in writing these books was to engage her sons in reading and early on she thought they'd not read a book with a girl as the main character. Apparently female readers eventually made their point and this is the result.

I am old enough to remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens (so older than the age range this book is set for). I did learn a lot about volcanoes--though sometimes the researchers information could be a bit dry.

It was kind of ironic that "Skeleton Woman" was trying to stop loggers from taking the trees but the eruption basically took out the trees anyway. ( )

Good for 4th grade ( )