The Seismic Seven

Gr 4–7—Thirteen-year-old YouTuber and video gamer Brianna wins a chance to spend the summer working with a prominent geologist at Montana's Yellowstone. Along with three other contest winners, she believes she'll be studying seismic activity in the supervolcano beneath the park. After spending weeks cut off from contact with their families, drilling tunnels deep beneath the earth, the young teens discover their true mission. Geologist Dr. Samantha Grier and her park administrator sidekick are actually misanthropic maniacs out to destroy humanity in a last-ditch bid to head off climate change and allow Earth to recover from mass extinctions. Slivensky, a science educator with a background in paleoanthropology, brings attention to the natural process of regrowth after destruction, particularly in Brianna's meditation on the destruction to the park and to Yellowstone Lake. An author's note explains that, while the Yellowstone supervolcano is a real phenomenon, the science of triggering and stopping the eruption is wholly invented. Many readers will find key elements of the narrative preposterous, but the story includes enough whipsaw plot twists and over-the-top action to maintain engagement.