You don’t have to take a trip to the thermal pools of Iceland or the black beaches of Hawaii to discover what’s so hot about volcanoes. Warm up instead with a copy of What’s So Hot About Volcanoes?, a new book by volcanologist Wendell Duffield. Lively discussions introduce readers of all ages to the creative power of volcanoes, explaining the reasons behind where they form, what they look like, and when they explode. Think of a volcano as a safety valve on a pressure cooker, author Wendell Duffield tells readers. The inside of Earth reaches a blistering 9,000 to 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and volcanoes simply release some of that pent-up heat from time to time.

Sections of What’s So Hot About Volcanoes? explore the challenges of predicting eruptions, what happens when magma mixes with water, and how people are using volcanic heat for energy. An appendix lists all the volcanoes in the United States that are still young enough to look like volcanoes.