In distinct contrast to the general run of introductions to volcanoes, which tend to be full of melodramatic images and tales of widespread disaster, this survey goes for cute. Wagstaffe does acknowledge the perils of being anywhere near an erupting volcano’s gigantic emissions of gas and flows of lava and ash, pyroclastic or otherwise, but Stevie turns out to be more lonely than dangerous, and her fiery Hawaiian neighbors throw her a welcome party when she emerges from the ocean at last. And given that McLaughlin has put dot-eyed faces—some showing strained expressions, but most smiling—on every cone in sight, topped the active ones with rubbery blobs of magma, and surrounded marine volcanoes with brightly colored sea life, readers are likely to take any narrative warnings lightly. Still, between multiple cutaway views of deep volcanic structures and lucid explanations of calderas, hydrothermal vents, differences between immense shield volcanoes and those that form cinder and composite cones, and other characteristics of volcanoes and volcanic eruptions, there is a good fund of solid information to take away. The author closes by observing that the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate patterns actually pale next to those caused by humans. Human figures in the art are rare but racially diverse.