Interesting Volcano Book with a Twist

Volcano Rising by Elizabeth Rusch, Illustrated by Susan Swan, Charlesbridge Publishing.

KA-BOOM! What a great way to get this book started 🙂 There are a lot of Pow!, Hissss! Gurgles! and Tsss! type words here that boys will enjoy. Not only are the words catchy and exciting but this is an unusual volcano book as it approaches volcanos not as dangerous and destructive, but as creative.

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How can a volcano be creative you might be asking . . . well, I was wondering the same thing. What she means is that volcanos are creative because they create land, mountains, and island. They can also repair scarred land.

What I like about Volcano Rising is that the text is large and inviting and well suited for younger boys but there is also additional smaller print text to give more in-depth information about certain topics. I also like that there are small stories in the book that make reading about volcanos more interesting. There is a story about a farmer who plows his cornfield in Mexico and ash explodes from a crack in the ground and one about how the US Army bombed Mauna Loa in Hawaii to redirect lava from reaching a city.

The illustrations are a nice mixed-media collage style and very colorful. I always like books that have good illustrations as they can add so much to a boy’s enjoyment of the topic. The book also has a great vocabulary section and a bibliography (including web links) for learning more.

Overall this is a neat and different book about volcanos.

The illustration style might be something boys would like to try. Here is a video on a small tree collage that can get them started. Then they can move on to volcanos!

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