Global warming has wreaked havoc upon Upper Poyntz Colony. The Pixel Corps of Discovery-one millimeter-tall Speck, Dotty, Bitty, Nano, and Grandpa Grain Pixel-is sent to find the source of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Days later, the Pixel's plane crash lands in a strange world, on the desktop of fourth-grader Faith Singer. To escape, the family must make a long, perilous journey...through the inside of Faith's desk and out the bottom.
Meanwhile, Faith and her classmate Fulton Black discover the Pixels living in Faith's pink pencil sharpener on her desktop, They must hide the micro-family from their nefarious science teacher, Quinten Carbo, who wishes to gain fame and fortune by experimenting on them.When the two fourth-graders learn about the Circle, six colonies of mini-scientist who could hold the solution to Earth's climate change problem, they know their mission is even more critical.