The Volcano Disaster - Hardcover

Kehret, Peg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671009699 ISBN 13: 9780671009694

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1998

Synopsis

Courtesy of his grandfather's latest crazy invention, the Instant Commuter, Warren Spalding winds up at the foot of the soon-to-erupt Mount Saint Helens in May of 1980, and tries desperately to contact his science partner, Betsy Miller.

About this title

About the Author

PEG KEHRET's popular novels for young people are regularly nominated for state awards. She has received the Young Hoosier Award, the Golden Sower Award, the Iowa Children's Choice Award, the Celebrate Literacy Award, the Sequoyah Award, the Land of Enchantment Award, the Maud Hart Lovelace Award, and the Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award. She lives with her husband, Carl, and their animal friends in Washington State, where she is a volunteer at the Humane Society and SPCA. Her two grown children and four grandchildren live in Washington, too.

Peg's Minstrel titles include Nightmare Mountain: Sisters, Long Ago; Cages; Terror at the Zoo; Horror at the Haunted House; and the Frightmares series.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7-This is the first book in a planned series of "natural disaster" stories. Warren Spalding is sent to live with his grandmother after his father dies in an accident and his mother returns to college. There he discovers his grandfather's invention, an Instant Commuter. Accidentally, the boy is transported back in time to the slopes of Mt. St. Helens just minutes before its eruption in 1980. His new friend Betsy follows him in an effort to save him and both experience the whirlwind of ash that makes it difficult to breathe as well as move, the sharp earthquakes, and the frightening lightning. The fact that the two friends are working on a school report about the mountain allows the author to bring in other facts about volcanoes. Some readers will find this approach too didactic. There's no character development; Warren and Betsy are wooden figures as are the other people they briefly encounter in the present world and in the past. However, students interested in volcanoes may be drawn to the detailed descriptions of what it would have been like to be in the midst of this eruption.
Edith Ching, St. Albans School, Mt. St. Alban, Washington,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0671009699
• ISBN 13: 9780671009694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144