Ashfall (survival)

Book Title: Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Thoughts: After reading this book, I did some research to find out more about supervolcanoes and checked to see if the ash would fall on where I live.  You might want to check out the pictures of what parts of Earth look like when covered in ash.  This book is based on the idea if a supervolcanoe erupts how a teenager would survive.

If you have read Life As We Knew It, this is like it, but Alex, the main character goes in search of his parents instead of staying at home and trying to survive.

Alex is a fifteen year old who constantly fights with his mother but convinces her that he should be allowed to stay at home in Cedar Falls, Iowa, instead of going with his family to visit his uncle in Warren, Illinois.  Three hours after his family leaves, the supervolcano erupts, and Alex is on his own in trying to survive.  He decides to use his father's skis to travel cross country (110 miles according to Google maps) to find his family.  Alex meets escaped convicts (no electricity means prisons cannot hold prisoners), cannibals, parents dragging dead children behind them, and Darla who becomes his companion in his journey.

This book kind of makes me not want to leave my own children at home in case some catastrophe occurs, and we are split apart without cell phones or landlines to be able to communicate with each other.  This book does have a sequel like Life As We Knew It, so we will have to see how Alex survives the ashfall during winter.