Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun kids book and will be a great summer read.

I enjoyed Jamie Sumner’s Schooled and the whole host of characters at the Copernican School! I think this will be a good read for the kid who feels like school as it is might be a waste of time, a kid going through loss, or a kid finding themself.

Another great book by Jamie Sumner about friendships, loss, bravery, support, and a lot of laughing. Lenny is attending Copernican School with four other students at the university where dad is a professor. The instructor, Paulo, wants the students to create their own school where they will become their best selves. They can audit classes, go to the library, go to group therapy, and journal. They have to come up with an end-of-the-year project. One day while walking Lenny meets VW, a professor of fairy tales. Lenny goes to his class and likes it, but Lenny thinks of his mom who died and decides to skip classes. He goes to the storage shed where mom’s things are which helps with his grief. When VW stops appearing in class, Lenny hears the university might want to fire VW. Is this true? Lenny comes up with a plan and asks the other students to help. They agree. What happens next?
Thank you to the publisher for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

After his mother's death, Lenny's Latin professor father takes him to live on a college campus. Lenny starts his sixth grade year in an experimental school where he and his classmates have the freedoms and responsibilities of college students.

This is a novel premise and an interesting and unconventional take on a school story. Sumner is fantastic at infusing humor into serious topics like grief. The novel is fun, but unfortunately it felt a little rushed. I wish the second half was a little longer and more fleshed out.

4 stars

Jamie Sumner always delivers, and this newest middle grade effort is no exception.

Lenny is 11, and he is going through big changes. After his mother's death six months ago, he's faced with grief, of course, and he is also now more reliant on his father, who is a professor and who is not great at communicating his feelings. Thanks to a new job opportunity, Lenny's dad is moving them into a whole new life, making the loss of Lenny's mom even more apparent and profound. Fortunately, Lenny finds a charming community of peers and an unexpected champion (and a person whom he can champion) in this new environment. Sadness, it turns out, is not without hope.

I'm always amazed by how much emotion Sumner elicits from these quick texts, especially considering the audience. Lenny is a developed character whose pain is palpable. Readers who have experienced a loss will connect with the ways that grief hits him over and over again. He'll be an excellent mirror for those who can sadly empathize, and he'll be a vital window for folks whose loved ones are experiencing losses.

This book will make you sad, but you will enjoy it and find so much value in it despite the heartbreak. This is another winner from a proven author.

This was a sweet and sometimes sad story about a middle school student, Lenny, who struggles to connect with his father after the death of his mother the year before from cancer. At one point Lenny notes that because his father has struggled so much with his own grief, and because the nature of their relationship before his mother's death was already fairly distant anyway, it feels like he has lost both parents. This touched me profoundly. While I am much older than Lenny I have spent the past three years since my mother's death trying to find a new normal with my father despite his grief, my grief, and his weird dad-ness. The story itself was fine, kind and sweet like Sumner's works generally are, but I particularly appreciated finding a character experiencing what I did and am still experiencing.