August 13, 2012
Too much homogeneity is never a good thing. In this funny and insightful middle-grade novel from Korman (Pop), eighth-grader Donovan Curtis is a reckless boy with “poor impulse control,” whose classmates have voted him “Most Likely to Wind Up in Jail.” After Donovan’s gift for chaos causes an especially costly accident at school, a paperwork mix-up sees him transferred to his town’s Academy for Scholastic Distinction, instead of being expelled. Donovan is woefully out of place among the ASD’s young geniuses and scholars, but his normality proves something his new classmates desperately need: as he grows academically, the gifted kids grow socially just from being around him. Donovan, his classmates, and his teachers take turns narrating, and while Korman uses basic archetypes to start (from Donovan’s goofball friends at his old school to the awkward nerds at the ASD), he gradually humanizes each of them, revealing them as complex, changing, and surprising individuals. As Donovan’s classmate Chloe puts it, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Especially if one of those parts is Donovan.” Ages 10–up. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown.
January 1, 2013
Gr 5-8-Donovan Curtis, a middle-school troublemaker with on I.Q. of only 112, finds himself at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction because the school superintendent wrote his name on the wrong piece of paper. Donovan can't keep up with the academic curriculum and teachers and students begin to suspect that he has been improperly placed. But when Donovan names the Robotics Team's project "Tin Man" and brings his pregnant sister to class after school administrators fail to schedule a mandatory Human Growth & Development class, listeners will begin to wonder who in this story is really gifted. Events unfold in short chapters presented via the viewpoints of different characters and read by a full cast. Korman's tale (Balzer + Bray, 2012) acknowledges and appreciates different personal gifts and shows that when people of various abilities work together, they can achieve great things. As in other novels by Korman, the lessons are presented painlessly and set in laugh-out-loud situations.-Mary Lee Bulat, Harwinton Public Library, CT
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