Dear Spivet Family, I have gone for a while to do some work. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I didn't want to bother you by telling about it ahead of time.

Thank you for taking care of me. You are one of the best families in the world. Love, T.S.

T.S. makes sense of his chaotic family life by drawing beautiful, meticulous maps kept in innumerable colour-coded notebooks. He is brilliant, and the Smithsonian Institution agrees, though when they award him a major scientific prize they don't suspect for a moment that he is twelve years old.

So begins T.S.'s life-changing adventure, travelling two thousand miles across America to reach the awards dinner, the secret-society membership and the TV interviews that beckon. But is this what he wants? Do maps and lists explain the world? And why are adults so strange?