Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Boy Who Found Joy

The Boy Who Found Joy

Higgins, Daniel

Paperback

General Juvenile Fiction

ISBN13: 9798183062052
Publisher: Daniel Higgins
Published: Nov 5 2026
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.43
Height: 0.39 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

In the bleak market town of Oakhaven, laughter has become a rare and almost forgotten sound. Twelve-year-old Oliver Dawson has never understood why. While his mother, Rose, struggles to keep their failing bakery alive, Oliver fills his pockets with clockwork scraps and jokes, hoping to awaken the warmth he cannot seem to feel himself. But when he witnesses a frightened courier carrying a mysterious glowing satchel, he discovers the terrible secret behind the town's growing silence: Dorian Blackwell, the keeper of a strange curiosity shop, is buying people's happiest memories and bottling their laughter in enchanted glass jars.With the help of Stella Morgan, a sharp-minded young watchmaker, Oliver steals a living spark of mirth and begins to uncover the truth about Blackwell's collection. Each captured laugh is a tiny winged creature, bright with the joy its owner has surrendered. Yet the jars are not merely curiosities. They are part of a desperate bargain meant to hold back an ancient force of winter and sorrow known as the Mourn-Beast. Blackwell believes that keeping joy locked away is the only way to protect Oakhaven from a darkness that once destroyed his life.As the frost deepens and the town edges toward ruin, Oliver must decide whether to trust the man who has imprisoned its happiness or risk unleashing the very danger everyone fears. With Stella's inventions, unexpected allies, and a courage born from compassion, he sets out to prove that joy is not something to hoard or trade. It is a living force that grows when shared-and may be powerful enough to mend what grief has broken.The Boy Who Found Joy is a whimsical, heartfelt fantasy about friendship, memory, courage, and the healing power of laughter. In a world where happiness can be stolen and sealed behind glass, one boy's determination may remind an entire town how to feel alive again.As Oliver follows the trail from the shadowed alleys to the town's hidden histories, he learns that even the most frightening choices can begin with heartbreak. Blackwell was once a beloved performer known as Mister Bobo, but a devastating encounter with the Mourn-Beast left his troupe hollow and his own laughter buried beneath grief. His fear turned him into the guardian of a prison built from other people's joy. Oliver must show Oakhaven that a life preserved without feeling is no life at all, and that shared laughter can restore what sorrow has stolen.

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