VOLCANOES

This trim overview gives young readers an excellent grounding on volcanoes in an efficient few words. Branley starts out strong with direct, one-page descriptions of how Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii, Mount Tabora made 1816 the year without a summer, and Mount St. Helens "covered fields and ponds" and "buried animals, houses, and people" in mud. There follows a succinct and easily readable explanation of how volcanoes are caused by magma pushing up between (or through) moving plates in the earth's crust. Then comes a pair of snappy maps, with bright little bursts of color denoting the Pacific Ring of Fire and other volcano locations throughout the world. Simont's varied illustrations—be they maps, diagrams, turbulent scenes, or pictures of people—are as vigorous and telling as the text.