After writing his first book, Oliver is kind of a celebrity around school. But when he gets caught in a cafeteria catastrophe involving some seriously explosive cherry cobbler, he quickly goes from being the “funny science kid” to one of the “Epic Barf kids.” Oliver needs to restore his reputation—and winning the Science Fair seems like the perfect way for everyone to forget about the whole barf thing.

There’s just one obstacle: Ana Lía Quintero, who wins every year.

Luckily, Oliver has the help of his geoscientist aunt (even though she’s a little, um, quirky). To have any chance of defeating his archnemesis, he’ll have to learn all about volcano burps and bacteria farts, how Earth’s layers are basically like a boba tea drink, and how school cliques and the solar system have a lot in common.

With laugh-out-loud humor, Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! follows an eleven-year-old who’s taking on the whole universe—if he can survive middle school first.