Another librarian friend of mine told me about this series, and it's truly amazing. I read all three of the books some time ago, but I like to recommend them all the time to kids and adult alike.It's especially cool because they are set in our very own Iowa.
In the first chapter of the first novel, a teen boy named Alex is left home alone for the weekend. While he is trying decide which computer games to play without interruption, the house begins to shake, thunder sounds louder than he's ever heard, and he ends up pulling himself from the rubble pile that is his home. No one in his small town seems to know what is going on, but a strange substance begins to fall from the sky and doesn't quit - the ash from a distant mega-volcano. Alex tries desperately to get back to his family who is a couple hours away. The ash becomes like the dust in the American Dust Bowl era, covering everything and killing people and animals who breathe it in and destroying the natural resources by suffocating them. Along the road, Alex is met with violence both from other people and the desolate environment and altered weather patterns that follow the volcano's destruction. He does find a friend, Darla, along the way, who becomes very important to him and the story.
I'm not quite sure why I couldn't put Ashfall down. It was dark and dystopian, yes, but the idea of the ash and the struggle and randomness of the characters Alex meets was like no other. It seemed very real and unbelievable at the same time, and while the journey had a pattern and rhythm to it, it was so exciting, I couldn't wait to see if he made it to his family. The others in the series, Ashen Winter, and Sunrise are equally wonderful and exciting as well And I didn't even know about the prequel, Darla's Story, but I'll be getting that one soon!
