abigailbat's review against another edition
3.0
Scientists in the Field are always great. This is a great book for teaching kids how scientists can predict volcanoes and what happens during and after an eruption. I'll be using it for a volcanoes program later in the summer!
stenaros's review against another edition
2.0
Read for Librarian Book Group
This is a gripping book, on the surface, at least. It's about the scientists who run the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). They fly to volcanoes around the world and help local scientists make the calls to evacuate, as well as assist how the volcano will blow. Interesting program. Not-so-gripping text. I had to keep forcing myself to finish it.
This is a gripping book, on the surface, at least. It's about the scientists who run the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). They fly to volcanoes around the world and help local scientists make the calls to evacuate, as well as assist how the volcano will blow. Interesting program. Not-so-gripping text. I had to keep forcing myself to finish it.
referencegrrrl's review against another edition
3.0
There are more than 1500 potentially active volcanoes around the world. More than 50 erupt each year. The United States alone has approximately 169 potentially active volcanoes.
On the afternoon of November 13, 1985, in Colombia, South America, a snow-covered mountain named Nevado del Ruiz, blasted ash into the sky and showered down on the village of Armero. People feared that the mountain would completely erupt, yet no one left because it stopped just a few hours later – only to start up again, this time unleashing a fury of hot ash and melted rock and gases. Still the people stayed. They felt they were relatively safe, being 45 miles away. But the mudflow of gases, ash, and rock tore down the side of the mountain and avalanched into rivers. As the mudflow surged closer to the village of Armero, it was too late for the people to evacuate. By the time it was over, 23,000 people had died.
US Scientists began questioning – could they have prevented this tragedy? From the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington, where they were studying Mt St Helens, geologist were taking gas samples, surveying the crater, and studying deposits from the mountain – and they learned that while they couldn’t prevent a volcano from erupting, they DID learn that volcanoes generally announce when they may erupt – hours, days, even weeks ahead of time.
They could have read the signs that Nevado del Ruiz was sending, and perhaps they could have prevented such a loss of life.
Out of this was born the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program. These scientists study spewing volcanoes all over the world in an attempt to predict eruptions.
This book is filled with fascinating photographs of these scientists as they climb volcanoes, set up monitoring stations, and work with the people who live in the shadows of these volcanoes every day.
On the afternoon of November 13, 1985, in Colombia, South America, a snow-covered mountain named Nevado del Ruiz, blasted ash into the sky and showered down on the village of Armero. People feared that the mountain would completely erupt, yet no one left because it stopped just a few hours later – only to start up again, this time unleashing a fury of hot ash and melted rock and gases. Still the people stayed. They felt they were relatively safe, being 45 miles away. But the mudflow of gases, ash, and rock tore down the side of the mountain and avalanched into rivers. As the mudflow surged closer to the village of Armero, it was too late for the people to evacuate. By the time it was over, 23,000 people had died.
US Scientists began questioning – could they have prevented this tragedy? From the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington, where they were studying Mt St Helens, geologist were taking gas samples, surveying the crater, and studying deposits from the mountain – and they learned that while they couldn’t prevent a volcano from erupting, they DID learn that volcanoes generally announce when they may erupt – hours, days, even weeks ahead of time.
They could have read the signs that Nevado del Ruiz was sending, and perhaps they could have prevented such a loss of life.
Out of this was born the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program. These scientists study spewing volcanoes all over the world in an attempt to predict eruptions.
This book is filled with fascinating photographs of these scientists as they climb volcanoes, set up monitoring stations, and work with the people who live in the shadows of these volcanoes every day.
allerkins's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastic nonfiction book for children. I learned a lot about the science of volcano prediction and how scientists make decisions to evacuate that save lives. This should be a popular one with kids.
daniellejones's review against another edition
5.0
Another stellar book from Scientist in the Field series.
benedorm's review against another edition
3.0
I was immediately sucked into the story of the brave and resourceful scientists of the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program. The book focuses on two of the VDAP's greatest triumphs -- their studies of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, and Mount Merapi in 2010. In both cases, the VDAP scientists accurately predicted major eruptions a few days before they occurred, enabling evacuations that saved tens of thousands of lives. Elizabeth Rusch's sentence-level writing is engaging, and I thought she did very well at bringing the reader right into the middle of the action.
I have some questions, however, about places where the style -- and, more especially, the editing -- seemed to get in the way of the Presentation of Information item in the Newbery criteria. For instance, the text mentions the technical word "fumaroles" twice, once in a chart on page 10, and in the main text on page 11, without either defining the word or explicitly referring the reader to the glossary in the back. However, when the word appears in the main text on page 15, it's defined within the sentence -- and then defined again, using almost the exact same words, on page 21. Additionally, on page 63, the text lists the name of a village as Dusun Petung, but the photo caption simply calls it Petung. The map on page 8 also misspells the name of Mount Rainier. Those are small points, to be sure, but in an informational text, I don't think we can just ignore them.
When I finished Eruption!, I was glad to have read it, and I felt like I'd learned a lot about an organization I'd never before even heard of. I don't think, however, that it has that je ne sais quoi that the best of last year's titles did, and I find the sloppy editing troubling.
A longer version of this review appears at abouttomock.blogspot.com
I have some questions, however, about places where the style -- and, more especially, the editing -- seemed to get in the way of the Presentation of Information item in the Newbery criteria. For instance, the text mentions the technical word "fumaroles" twice, once in a chart on page 10, and in the main text on page 11, without either defining the word or explicitly referring the reader to the glossary in the back. However, when the word appears in the main text on page 15, it's defined within the sentence -- and then defined again, using almost the exact same words, on page 21. Additionally, on page 63, the text lists the name of a village as Dusun Petung, but the photo caption simply calls it Petung. The map on page 8 also misspells the name of Mount Rainier. Those are small points, to be sure, but in an informational text, I don't think we can just ignore them.
When I finished Eruption!, I was glad to have read it, and I felt like I'd learned a lot about an organization I'd never before even heard of. I don't think, however, that it has that je ne sais quoi that the best of last year's titles did, and I find the sloppy editing troubling.
A longer version of this review appears at abouttomock.blogspot.com
amdame1's review against another edition
3.0
Primary source photos, maps, graphs, and charts add much color and interest to this informative book about volcanoes. Lots of details about the science and technology used now to help predict volcanoes and mitigate their devastating effects makes it a perfect tie-in for 8th grade catastrophic events projects. In the back is an index, vocabulary, chapter notes, and a selected bibliography. The only thing missing is a page of suggested/additional resources.
chitownjr's review against another edition
5.0
This latest edition in the Scientists in the Field series focuses on the heroic work of the first and only international volcano crisis team, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program or VDAP. The book opens with a harrowing description and photographs of the destruction wrought by the 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia. Vowing to never let this happen again, we follow the courageous and determined scientists of the VDAP in their quest to predict volcanic eruptions and avoid catastrophe. Using personal narrative and breathtaking photographs, Rusch focuses specifically on the scientists’ work with two volcanoes, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines and Mount Merapi in Indonesia. The exciting first person accounts are made instructive through the addition of helpful maps, educational diagrams and sidebars. Designed for fifth through eighth graders, the large format book includes a handy glossary, extensive bibliography and index. This book would be a wonderful addition to the non-fiction collection of a school or public library.
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