Sharon Kaye

Disillusioned with college, Everett takes a position teaching philosophy to kids at an innovative summer enrichment academy on an island off the New England coast. The academy is run by fellow student Juniper’s Aunt Laura, and at Laura’s recommendation, Everett uses as his curriculum an exploration of the concept of happiness as described by ten of history’s most significant philosophers. This idea is sparked by a collection of readings saved by Laura’s grandmother, a teacher who originally owned the mansion in which the academy is housed. But along with those readings is a set of clues that lead to a rare historic work by an ancient Greek philosopher—a codex—that is hidden in the mansion. So Everett sets to work preparing the readings for his students while simultaneously solving the clues with Juniper to find the codex. What Everett doesn’t know, however, is that he and Juniper are not the only ones on the hunt for the codex, and the stakes are high. The book is extremely valuable, and there are plenty of people who would like to get their hands on the money it would bring at auction, including the people who are funding Laura’s academy. The question of rightful ownership and the mystery of the codex’s location deepen as Everett and Juniper solve the riddles to find the keys that will open whatever safe contains the ancient text. And all the while, Everett finds himself falling for Juniper. He’s also working through the collection of philosophical readings about happiness, taking each one in turn and presenting it in clear, concise, modern English to his students, who are eager to discover how to lead a happy life. Everett is equally eager to make the same discovery, and he carefully considers each philosopher’s thinking on the matter, applying the concepts to his own life in an effort to understand them in the context of a young person in the real world struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his future. As Everett gains clarity on what he wants out of life, however, the mystery of the codex takes a dark turn, and everything he thought he knew is turned upside down. Who will end up with the codex? What will happen to the academy? And will Everett be able to take everything that he has learned—both the good and the bad—to build a life for himself that will bring him the most happiness? There is an accompanying guidebook for this novel.

Nobody understands TJ, so when he finds an abandoned cabin in the woods, it feels to him like a haven from society. But that night, TJ starts having unusually vivid dreams that take him back to the middle of the nineteenth century, where he learns about the American philosophical movement known as Transcendentalism and where he is introduced to a man living in an identical cabin, this one on the shore of Walden Pond: Henry David Thoreau. TJ soon learns that his classmate Ivy is sharing the dream with him; she enters it as Louisa May Alcott, and he is a teen who is spending the summer with the Alcott family. Together they must solve the mystery of a murdered woman in the woods near Thoreau's cabin, and along the way, they meet such eminent and influential figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, William Ellery Channing—and of course Thoreau. Solving the murder mystery in the dream requires TJ and Ivy to learn about the beliefs and principles of the Transcendentalists, which reveal to them the foremost social struggle of the day: the abolition of slavery. They also discover the philosophers' views on women's rights and the relationship of humans to the natural world and to one another—and, in a fundamental way, to the idea of God. This information provides just what TJ and Ivy need to solve a mystery back in their waking lives of a missing painting related to the strange cabin in the woods. As he works through the mysteries, TJ finds himself embracing Transcendentalism, and it gives him a new perspective on his real life and how he ultimately wants to live it.