Blakefield Academy for the Incredibly Stupid

A title like Blakefield Academy for the Incredibly Stupid is a dare, and the book earns it. The sign over the gates, the dunce caps, the "Low IQ. Low Motivation. Low Self-esteem." admission requirements printed in bold black ink: Kenny builds the cruelty of the premise on purpose, so that the turn lands harder. The first pages are the strongest. One child per fifth-grade class is quietly chosen as "the one the teachers quietly agree is 'just not getting it,'" and the families cry. Any child who has ever hidden in a bathroom during math will recognize Ben, whose report card "looked like it had lost a fight with a red pen." That line gets a smile while also stinging.

Headmaster Wolfe's reframe is the heart of the book. "That is not stupidity. It is a misalignment of perspective" gives young readers a new way to hear the word they've been called. The dedication and the closing line, that the world has been "confusing being misunderstood as being unintelligent," show an author who has spent her career as a special education teacher and wrote this book for the kids in front of her. The structure is clear and satisfying: midnight doors, secret gifts, a mission for each child, and a graduation that sends them out into the city to do real good. The little twist that BA never stood for Blakefield Academy but for Believe Always is exactly the kind of reveal a young reader will want to say out loud.

This is a hopeful, premise-forward book for the underestimated child, and it knows precisely who it is for.