Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home

From New York Times-bestselling and Eisner-nominated author Zach Weinersmith comes a cartoon-illustrated middle grade novel starring an unadventurous kid who is dragged into the hilarious misadventures of his friends and family.

Eleven-year-old Sawyer Lee descends from an endless lineage of tiresomely adventurous people. As our story begins, his parents and siblings are making their mark on the world as astronauts, scientists, spies, champion athletes . . . blah blah blah. Sawyer isn’t interested--you see, he has decided that after generations of hard effort, it’s time for this family to spend one lifetime relaxing on the couch. Or, in Sawyer’s case, his best friend Gary’s couch.

The problem is that Sawyer keeps getting caught up in the exhausting expectations of his wicked aunt Celia, his complex relationship with his ambitious other friend, Angela, and the shenanigans of everybody else in town hoping to win the yearly Gourd Thump festival celebrating nature’s dullest vegetable.

In this tale of mystery, treachery, conspiracy, plant husbandry, and an imaginary love triangle, Sawyer knows it will take a regrettable amount of energy to escape these entanglements and find a way back to his happy place on Gary’s couch, with a cozy throw blanket, a steaming mug of chamomile tea, and an empty schedule.

Illustrated throughout with black-and-white cartoons from the author, Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home is a comedy of errors, eccentricities, and everyday adventures starring a hero who would rather be anything but heroic.

Zach Weinersmith is the creator of the popular webcomic SMBC, the creator of the nerd comedy show BAHFest, and the co-author of the New York Times-bestselling popular science book, Soonish. He is the artist of First Second’s Open Borders and the writer of Bea Wolf, a modern comedic retelling of the classic Beowulf epic.