Waiting on Wednesday--Ashfall, by Mike Mullin

One of my favorite books as a child was Hill's End, by Ivan Southall. Kids in peril after a natural disaster, struggling to survive with no grown-ups around--lovely stuff. And over the years, I've enjoyed similar books lots. But nowadays, it seems to me that there are just Too Many Zombies around, cluttering up nice survival stories, and I just don't like zombie books. There are exceptions, of course, like Trapped, but still.

So I am looking forward very much to Ashfall, by Mike Mullin (Tanglewood Press, YA, 476 pages)--a zombie free natural disaster story! Technically its release date is September 27, but it seems to be available on Amazon now....

Here's the blurb:

"Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don't realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano. It has erupted three times in the last 2.1 million years, and it will erupt again, changing the Earth forever.

Fifteen-year-old Alex is home alone when the supervolcano erupts. His town collapses into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence, forcing him to flee. He begins a harrowing trek in search of his parents and sister, who were visiting relatives 140 miles away.Along the way, Alex struggles through a landscape transformed by more than a foot of ash. The disaster brings out the best and worst in people desperate for food, clean water, and shelter. When an escaped convict injures Alex, he searches for a sheltered place where he can wait--to heal or to die. Instead, he finds Darla. Together, they fight to achieve a nearly impossible goal: surviving the supervolcano.

With nonstop action, a little romance, and realistic science, debut author Mike Mullin tells a mesmerizing story. Readers will turn Ashfall's pages breathlessly, and continue to ponder Alex and Darla's fate long after they close the book."

I'm prepped--a favorite dvd in our house is Super Volcano, a documentary about this very volcano! And even though I've never actually sat down and watched it myself (what is the point of non-fiction dvds if not to occupy the young while one does other things?) I've absorbed lots of it....

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.