Can You Stop a Volcanic Disaster?

Matt Doeden's choose-your-own-path nonfiction puts young readers in the role of a volcanologist making real decisions — which mountain to monitor, how to respond when sensors spike, what to do when communities resist evacuation. Three separate storylines with dozens of possible outcomes keep the format from feeling mechanical, and the nonfiction information sections at each story's end extend the learning beyond the adventure. School Library Journal praised it for encouraging students to think as scientists while problem-solving in the field, and that is an accurate description of what the format accomplishes. The trade-off is that choose-your-own structure limits sustained narrative investment, and the science is necessarily simplified for the age range. As a STEM classroom tool or a book to hand an earth-science-curious kid, it works well.