Les Leiter

Come on Get Happy Les Leiter

COME ON GET HAPPY is the first-person narrative story of a bright sixth grader, Rose J. Smith who becomes obsessed with studying happiness as a science. She tells her mother she despises the simplistic song as the way people become happy. She is convinced there is more to it--more effort is needed. She devours library books on the subject written by social scientists who have studied countries and states looking for ways people become--and sometimes stay--happy. Despite her insistence to work alone on the project, her teacher teams her up with a quiet boy in the class, Stephen Mallow, whose family are Seventh Day Adventists. This baffles Rose for a while, but she finds that Stephen is a good student, like her, and they work well together. Their friendship and passion to learn through books and interviews will delight readers who may have forgotten the utter joy of learning something new and something that can inspire us to demand more of us to read more, ask questions of our sources and ourselves, and share this knowledge with learners like ourselves. But sometimes people and events get in the way of this learning and can waylay or even destroy our passion and enthusiasm. This almost happens to Rose and Stephen, but how they deal with the darkness that almost consumes them and their families is part of the journey this novella takes readers on.