The School for the Insanely Gifted
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Daphna Whispers is insanely gifted.
At age two and a half, she composed her first sonata.
At age eight, she completed an opera.
And now, at eleven and three-quarters, she is orchestrating a piano rhapsody.
With a résumé like that, it's no wonder she is a student at the prestigious Blatt School for the Insanely Gifted. But as sixth grade draws to a close, Daphna's mind is far from the upcoming "Insanity Cup" competition. She's preoccupied by her mother's disappearance two months ago.
When a mysterious man breaks into Daphna's small New York apartment, Daphna discovers that her mother's disappearance wasn't a random accident. Her mother knew something—and now somebody is after Daphna. What starts out as a simple fact-finding trip to the basement with her friends spirals into an international expedition. And while Daphna hopes to uncover the secret of her mother's disappearance on her global trek, the last thing she expects to uncover is an outrageous secret about the Blatt School.
And one insanely shocking secret about herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eleven-year-old Daphna Whispers is a musical genius at the Blatt School for the Insanely Gifted in New York City. In preparation for the upcoming Insanity Cup competition, Daphna's best friends Harkin and Cynthia are working on a Gum-Top ("The computer that you chew") and a one-woman musical version of Macbeth, respectively. Daphna is trying to compose her masterpiece, a rhapsody, but is distracted by her mother's mysterious disappearance and a series of bizarre occurrences: a man dressed as an antelope breaks into her apartment, school founder Ignatious Blatt (a cross between Steve Jobs and Willy Wonka) is taking forever to release his new invention, and his son, Myron, is snooping around Daphna's studio. Daphna, Harkin, and Cynthia follow clues left by Daphna's mother to Africa in Harkin's Thunkmobile in search of answers. It's a fairly standard adventure about preternaturally talented kids making the most of their gifts, but Elish (13: A Novel) offers an abundance of imaginative and humorous details and a plot full of twists and turns, while Daphna's search for her mother and her passion for music keep the story grounded. Ages 8 12.
