by Janne Teller
First published 2011
Pierre-Anthon walks out of his seventh-grade classroom one day and climbs into a plum tree. He announces that nothing matters and refuses to come down. His classmates throw rocks at him, but he stays put. The other students decide they must prove him wrong about life having no meaning. They begin collecting meaningful objects to create a pile of significance. The collection starts small with a fishing rod and new shoes. But the children grow desperate as Pierre-Anthon remains unmoved. Their sacrifices become increasingly severe as each student demands something more precious from the next. What begins as an attempt to demonstrate meaning spirals into something darker. The pile grows as the students push each other toward more extreme acts of sacrifice. Each child must give up something that truly matters to them.
Genres: fiction, drama, contemporary, adolescence
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, philosophical-debate
224 pages · Paperback · Strident
Content warnings: suicide