This article examines the ways in which interdisciplinary small groups were used in a school setting in order to drive students' "joyful engagement and" literacy instruction. Drawing from the work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad in "Cultivating Genius" (2020) and "Unearthing Joy" (2023) we designed and implemented a summer program built around bolstering foundational literacy skills, with an intentional focus on helping students experience joy and making each and every child feel special. In keeping true to the work of Dr. Muhammad, we designed learning opportunities to develop students' intellect, skills, and criticality, and grounded those competencies in their identity. The program design--including structured small groups, texts chosen to empower and resonate with our specific population of students, multiple opportunities to connect with the same texts--fostered an experience in which students were immersed in literacy in an authentic and meaningful way. Throughout this article we discuss how we implemented this work with rising first through third graders in a collaborative effort with the Netter Center and Penn GSE and share teacher feedback as well as student data.