The Book I chose to explore was I Survived: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 1980. I chose this book because I have read a couple of I Survived books and found them to be very interesting since they are based on true stories. This is a non-fiction book because the events that occur actually happened. In addition, the main characters Jessie, Sam and Eddie were real people who experienced this destructive volcanic event.
The theme of this book is about a volcanic eruption that occurred May 18th, 1980 at 8:32am at Mount St. Helens. The explosion was equal to ten million tons of dynamite and shot up into the sky for more than 12 miles. These toxic gases that shot out of the volcano covered a great deal of the forest. As a result, most of the forest was burnt down almost instantly by the massive blast.Leading up to the eruption there were many warning signs, including: large cracks in the mountain and small earthquakes. However, the eruption on May 18th was a true surprise. Within minutes, the mountain went from calm and quiet to become one of the greatest powerful natural disaster ever recorded in the U.S-
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For example, when Jess, Eddie and Sam were in the abandon cabin they experienced an earthquake. The reader can sense the frightfulness they must have endured as trees tumbled down everywhere around them in the forest. The author also describes in detail how the heat from the blast felt so hot that every breath was like inhaling fire. Thankfully, Jess figured out that if she tucked her shirt over her mouth she could breath. This intrigues us to read on as the reader wants more details on what she is going through and how she survived. Finally, we are relieved to know that Jess finds a helicopter to help rescue her friends. We can understand how brave they were, and lucky to encounter the helicopter to help them