A hilarious romp.
In the third book in the Ungifted series, hypergifted Noah Youkilis graduates from eighth grade and unwillingly starts off his summer at Wilderton University.
Making matters better (or maybe worse), he gets to bring his best friend, Donovan Curtis, who “barely squeaked through eighth grade,” to help him adjust before the fall semester begins. “Trouble magnet” Donovan will spend his days as a counselor-in-training with fellow 13-year-old Raina Overbrook and five energetic 8-year-olds. Living and working on campus requires way more effort than the lazy summer he’d hoped for. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Noah shows that he’s leaps and bounds ahead of many of the college students as he develops an elite AI program, but he’s behind the curve socially and struggles to fit in with the older students. Noah is bent on joining the university’s top-secret Society of the Gavel, seeing it as a way to finding friends and a great intellectual challenge (he has an IQ of 206). Joining the society proves difficult, however, and Donovan and Noah can’t help but engage in hijinks, including hiding the school mascot—a 300-pound pig—in their dorm room. Will they survive the summer without being caught pig-handed? Told from multiple points of view, the story is laugh-out-loud funny, and readers will be entertained as Noah and Donovan try to make sense of college life. The main characters present white.
A hilarious romp. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780063429291
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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