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This book was a level 4 non-fiction early reader with illustrations and a few real-life photos. I was looking for an early reader book that might be more appropriate for the boys in my class, but found this book to be a bit harsh in content. I was initially excited to see that almost the whole story was about Mt. Saint Helen’s and what happened before, during and after its explosion, however the more I read the more I thought it might not be appropriate for all early readers. The book talked a lot about how animals died and how people were killed in the eruption. It even talked about real people that were killed in the eruption and showed illustrations (which weren’t very good) of their homes being destroyed or cars being buried in ash. While I realize this is a real life fact of volcanoes I felt as though the book centered mostly on the death and destruction and not so much on the science behind volcanoes. I even felt a little worried about volcanoes when I finished reading and didn’t know that it would be a very appropriate book for very early readers. If I did decide to use it in my class, I would add it to my class library so my students could read it on their own at any time.

Describes the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980 and provides a simple explanation of how and why volcanoes erupt.