Ungifted
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4.5 • 29 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Donovan, whose real gift is getting into trouble, finds himself at an academy for gifted students!
Donovan is definitely skilled... at getting into trouble. And when one of his thoughtless pranks accidentally destroys the school gym during the Big Game, with the superintendent watching, he knows he's in for it. Suspension at best, maybe expulsion. Either way, a lawsuit and paying for damages. But through a strange chain of events, his name gets put on the list for the local school for gifted students: the Academy for Scholastic Distinction. Donovan knows he's not a genius, but he can't miss this chance to escape.
Now, he has to figure out a way to stay at ASD — and fit in with the kids there. And who knows, maybe his real gift will come to light...
A new story from the master of middle-grade and YA humour Gordon Korman, Ungifted is a funny exploration of the special (and often surprising) talents that make each of us gifted in our own way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
Awesome
I love the book especially when Donavan escapes out of detention