First published 2016
Eleven-year-old Jessie Marlowe knows Mount St. Helens like her own backyard. The Washington peak looks peaceful and safe, just another beautiful mountain in the wilderness she loves. But on May 10th, 1980, the mountain shows its true nature. Underground pressure that has built for over a century finally breaks free. The eruption turns Jessie's familiar world into a nightmare of poisonous gas clouds, rivers that boil, and avalanches of burning rock and ice. Jessie must use every skill she has to survive what becomes the most deadly volcanic disaster in American history. The mountain that once felt like home now wants to kill her. She faces a simple choice: find a way out or die trying.
Genres: survival, historical-fiction, adventure
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: Mount St. Helens, Washington
Period: 1980
107 pages · Paperback · Scholastic Paperbacks