Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Chapter Book
Sub Genre: Social Issues, Realistic Fiction
Theme: Family, Relationships, Social Issues, Friendship, Peer pressure
Primary & Secondary Characters: Pierre Anthon, Agnes, classmates
Awards: Mildred L. Batchelder Honor
Date of Publication: 2010
Publishing Company: Simon and Schuster
Summary of Book:
This chapter book is about a boy named Pierre Anthon who, one day, decides that there is no meaning to life. He says that "Life isn't worth the bother". After deciding that life has no meaning, he suddenly leaves his classroom and climbs a tree where he fully intends to stay. Pierre's friends and classmates can not talk him into coming down. Therefore, they set out to make a huge pile of meaningful things in abandoned saw mill. The process of building this big pile of meaningful things turns out to be pretty complicated being that nobody wants to give up what is most meaningful to them. However, they decide to tell each other what to put in the pile. This whole idea of giving up what is most meaningful to them spirals out of control. Every person in the book loses something precious to them to try to prove to Pierre that life is worth living.
This would be a book that a high school teacher may dare to take on to study existentialism. It is a complex book that has many meanings and may be too much for middle school children.
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