SUPERGIFTED

In the sequel to Ungifted (2012), Noah Youkilis gets himself kicked out of the Academy for Scholastic Distinction to see what it’s like at regular middle school.

Noah’s best friend, Donovan Curtis, can’t understand why such a genius would come to Hardcastle Middle School on purpose. He would be a target, a “wedgie looking for a place to happen.” Noah is 4 feet 11 inches tall, the size of a fourth-grader, with the posture of an ”oversize praying mantis.” He has a 200-plus IQ, a grating voice, and a “rocket-scientist vocabulary.” But Noah feels that “being a genius isn’t hard.…What’s hard is being normal.” He’s never had to work to get grades before, so now he goes out of his way to pick activities he’s bad at so he can improve at something, such as wood shop and cheerleading. But when Donovan saves a runaway truck from crashing into Megan Mercury’s house, Noah takes credit for the heroic feat and nearly loses Donovan as a friend. As in Ungifted, Korman uses multiple first-person points of view to reveal characters’ responses to Noah and to show how characters change when supergifted Noah becomes superhero Noah. The narrative moves swiftly and even becomes madcap toward the end as Donovan regains a friendship and becomes a hero in his own right. Characters are white by default.

Another chortleworthy outing from Korman. (Fiction. 10-14)