An excellent elementary level discussion of Mount St. Helens and its eruption of 1980. Contains good before and after photos and diagrams; however, this book was published in 1986, so the "healing" part of the text is missing over 35 years of data.

A non-fiction Newbery Honor Book about the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 and the area's subsequent regrowth. Eh. Clearly meant for kids, but it accomplishes this in simplistic language only. I mean, come on, this is a cool topic, so a book for kids about it should be more interesting than this one is. Also, the photos included were weirdly hard to figure out; for example, some of them were meant to focus on something that was *way* in the background of the actual photo, and a couple had blurbs that talked about features of the mountain that I could not find in the photo at all. Some sort of arrow pointing out said feature would have been great and seems like an obvious necessity to me. Anyway. I'll file this one in the Could Have Been Cool But Missed the Boat box. ( )

551.2

a very informative text that talks about different aspects of volcanoes and how they are important parts of the environment
1 book

Lauber's book is filled with photography that tells the story of the events leading up to the May 18, 1980 eruption, the devastation of the eruption and its immediate aftereffects. It also chronicles the new life that has appeared after years had gone by. The before and after pictures demonstrate the destruction of the volcano in a way that no words could communicate. The book is written in a way that would not overwhelm the younger reader with too many details. ( )