The Absolute Value of Mike by Katherine Erskine

 My Rating: 4.7

Ever since 14 yo Mike's mother died, he has been responsible for the care of his father, a brilliant math & engineering professor, who's fantastic with numbers, and terrible at managing life. Mike's own dyscalculia (a math disability) is a sticking point between he and his father. To help solve this, Mike's father announces that while he will be teaching overseas for the summer, Mike will go to stay with relatives in rural Pennsylvania, to help build an artesian screw. This project, in the eyes of Mike's father, will help Mike build the necessary skills to enter a prestigious math/science high school. Upon arrival in the town, though, Mike discovers that Moo and Poppy (his relatives) are in their 80s, grieving the death of their adult son, and that the "artesian screw" Moo described to his father is really an "artisan's crew," working to raise the funds necessary for the town's minister to adopt a Romanian orphan. Mike quickly gets involved in the plan, despite his ongoing protests that he's too young to help, and the town's unusual residents all pitch in to make the adoption work

    

This was a delightful quirky story with so many fun characters. Sometimes it felt a bit 'much' but if you get in the spirit of it, it really was so cute.