Aoyama goes to an elementary school in a small, but rapidly expanding town, with its back towards a mountainside. Even though he’s just a child, he already made plans on how to become a full-grown adult. He decided, at the age of 5, to never get mad again. He’s always calm, calculating and disciplined, waking earlier than his parents or his sister. He’s busy every day with research projects, writing and sketching in his notebook, exploring the town with his friend Uchida, going to the cafe and the dentists’ office. It is in the dentists’ office that he first met “the lady” – a mysterious woman that eventually becomes a topic of his research, perhaps the most difficult research of his life. That is saying a lot, considering that one day Aoyama, along with his friends who join him later - Uchida and Hamamoto - decide to investigate a mysterious phenomena that started happening in their city recently – penguins and other unusual creatures appearing in random places and a strange object floating in the forest. Will these science kids be able to solve this mystery and learn along the way? Well, I read the book so I already know the ending. I won’t say much but it my opinion it delivers a great, even if open-ended, conclusion to the story.

Once again, Tomohiko Morimi manages to deliver a fantastic light novel that hooks you on since the very beginning. I absolutely love the atmosphere, I could vividly paint the town Aoyama lives in when reading the book, I constantly made elaborate solutions to Aoyama’s problems, I smiled when he and “the lady” talked, and I felt anger whenever the bully Suzuki messed with Aoyama and Uchida. I adore these kids. It could easily become one of my favourite books.

"I made a record in my notebook of how it felt sitting alone at that window, but reading it over now, I don’t feel like it captured those feelings at all. I wasn’t able to reproduce it accurately. I’ve only felt like that once in my entire life. I have learned it is extremely difficult to write proper account of once-in-a-lifetime experiences."