Paricutín

Imagine a sunny field in Mexico, filled with tall green cornstalks. One day, the ground began to wiggle and jiggle. It felt warm, like a cozy blanket. A little hill started to puff up from the dirt, right where the corn used to grow. It was a big surprise. It was me. I am a brand-new mountain, a baby volcano named Parícutin.

My birthday was on a very special day, February 20th, in the year 1943. A kind farmer named Dionisio Pulido saw me first. I started as just a little puff of smoke coming out of the ground. But I didn't stay little for long. I grew, and I grew, and I grew. I sent sparkly, warm rivers of red lava down my sides. Puff, puff. I blew soft, gray ash high into the sky, like a big chimney. For nine whole years, all the way until 1952, I kept getting bigger until I was a tall, pointy mountain.

After all that growing, I became very tired and sleepy. Now, I am a quiet mountain. My sparkly lava cooled down and turned into dark, bumpy rock. I gently covered a little village with a blanket of ash, but the tip of a strong church tower still peeks out to say hello. Today, friends from all over the world come to visit me in Mexico. They climb my rocky sides and see the church tower. I show them that our Earth can make something new and wonderful, even in a quiet cornfield.