The best book I've read in a long time is called Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, by Wendy Mass. A month before his 13th birthday, Jeremy receives a package. It is a wooden box with multiple locks. On it are engraved the words, "The Meaning of Life." Strangely enough, though, there are no keys. Even stranger still is the fact that the box is a present from Jeremy's father, who died five years earlier.
Jeremy, along with his best friend Lizzie, decides to set off on a quest to find keys that will open the box. Along the way they encounter several people who help them get a glimpse of what the meaning of life might truly be.
This is a charming but not overly sentimental book. Read it and enjoy discoveries of some of the world's small, everyday wonders.