Today's book 06/22/2013

• Korman, Gordon. UNGIFTED

  Korman, Gordon. UNGIFTED New York : Balzer + Bray, 2012 IL 5-8, RL 5.6 ISBN 006174266X Donovan Curtis (IQ 112) is not gifted. Seventh grader Donovan Curtis is impulsive. Act before thinking is his major character trait and that has made him the frequent focus of appointments with the principal and school meetings with his parents. In fact as the novel opens we find him in this same scenario, only this time it is the office of Dr. Schultz, (IQ 127), the Superintendent of the Hardcastle Independent School District, 47 buildings, 30,000 students. Why you may ask? Well it has something to do with a bronze statue of Atlas, no longer holding the weight of the world, that rolled through the double glass doors of the Hardcastle Middle School gym during a major basketball game.How this leads to Donovan being sent to the gifted Academy for Scholastic Distinction (ASD) is a plot very much in the style, and humor of author Gordon Korman.Told in alternating chapters from the viewpoints (and IQs) of the major characters, this realistic fiction novel weaves in robots (you will love Tin Man), a pregnant sister, a somewhat bizarre dog, health education classes and a brother-in-law in Afghanistan.What this novel also weaves in is a look at different perspectives of giftedness and the gifted child and what gifts even the “ungifted” might possess and be needed by the best and the brightest. (Booktalk written by Kathleen Fencil, GSF Committee Bedford Middle School)

  tags: podcasts blueduke elementary gsf

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