When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal—if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal—is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum’s hallowed halls.

T.S. sets out alone, leaving before dawn with a plan to hop a freight train and hobo east. Once aboard, his adventures step into high gear and he meticulously maps, charts, and illustrates his exploits, documenting mythical wormholes in the Midwest, the urban phenomenon of "rims," and the pleasures of McDonald’s, among other things. We come to see the world through T.S.'s eyes and in his thorough investigation of the outside world he also reveals himself.

As he travels away from the ranch and his family we learn how the journey also brings him closer to home. A secret family history found within his luggage tells the story of T.S.'s ancestors and their long-ago passage west, offering profound insight into the family he left behind and his role within it. As T.S. reads he discovers the sometimes shadowy boundary between fact and fiction and realizes that, for all his analytical rigor, the world around him is a mystery.

雷夫•拉森（Reif Larsen） 他求学于布朗大学，执教于哥伦比亚大学。他是一个作家，也是一位电影制片，常在美国、英国以及非洲撒哈拉拍摄纪录片。

他于2009年出版少年历险小说《T.S.斯比维特作品集》，这部作品当即进入《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜，售出29国版权，还获得2010年蒙大拿荣誉选书（2010 Montana Honor book）、鲍德斯书店原创之声决选（the Border's Original Voices Finalist），以及英国最古老的文学奖詹姆斯•泰特•布莱克纪念奖（the James Tait Black Memorial Prize）等奖项。《天使爱美丽》的导演热内（Jean-Pierre Jeunet）执导3D电影。

如今，他居住在纽约的布鲁克林。