From the Publisher
Newton Goddard Starker lives with a mysterious curse. Members of the Starker family attract lightning, and nearly all his relatives have died from lightning strikes.
Newton is determined to beat the odds, and he may have found the answer: Jerry Potts Academy for Survival, a boarding school in Moose Jaw, Canada. Its motto is: Survival Through Fierce Intelligence. Newton’s ready to learn, and to be remembered in the school’s Hall of Heroes.
But for a boy who’s spent most of his life in a protective dome, making friends proves almost as challenging as the struggle to survive. Especially when he’s vying for top marks with the dynamo Violet Quon, a force of nature.
Publishers Weekly
The premise will snag readers immediately: except for his great-grandmother and father, every member of 14-year-old Newton Starker's family has been killed by lightning. The family keeps a set of rules-"Beware of cumulonimbus clouds," "Check the weather. Recheck the weather. Check it again"-but even they couldn't save Newton's mother, killed two years earlier. (The teen's father, not part of the bloodline, is not a lightning magnet.) Now, Newton has enrolled at the Jerry Potts Academy for Survival in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and hopes to avoid a similar fate. Stubborn and obsessed with all things culinary (especially truffles), Newton gains a new friend, an enemy/love interest and a pig with a talent for finding hidden objects in short order. But finding answers about the Starker "curse" isn't as easy. In brisk chapters, Slade (Megiddo's Shadow) offers readers plenty of humor (often at Newton's expense), as well as asides that include e-mails, character background and recipes. Slade's portrayal of Newton's sweep of emotions as he deals with his perceived fate-fear, fury, dogged determination-is especially convincing. Ages 11-14. (Mar.)
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Children's Literature
Newton Starker's family is cursed, and everybody knows it. Generation after generation of his mother's side of the family has been struck and killed by lightening. Nobody knows exactly how far back the curse goes, but fourteen-year-old Newton is determined to survive. In fact, his whole existence seems driven by methods of survival that he has come up with in order to outsmart his imminent death. Rule number one, of course, is to always check the weather! After his mother's death, Newton makes the decision to leave his protective home and father in order to attend Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival. He does not realize at the time, however, that in order to train the students for survival, the school has to put them in some risky situations, including forest hikes and mountain climbing outdoors, where the weather could change at any moment. Newton meets many interesting and likable people at Jerry Potts Academy, who all add a fun and lighthearted twist to the story. Though the overall idea of death is generally a topic avoided in novels for younger middle school students, Arthur Slade tackles the subject with a quirky story line and easy-to-follow events that lend this story to a younger generation of readers. Reviewer: Jeanna Sciarrotta
School Library Journal
Gr 5-8
Newton Starker, 14, has a curse: all but one of his ancestors have been killed by a lightning strike. The teen spends most of his time in a protective dome and constantly checks and rechecks the weather. His life is limited; he finds it hard to make friends. When his mother dies of a lightning strike, Newton tries to avoid the same fate by enrolling in the eccentric Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Its motto is "Survival Through Fierce Intelligence." In one class, for example, the students learn smoke signals and Morse code. Newton, a food connoisseur and budding chef, places a phone order of truffles for his quiche recipe, but, because of his imprecise French, he gets a highly intelligent, truffle-seeking pig. Then, in his first Culinary Arts and Survival class, he is confronted with ground squirrel. When he is hit by lightning but survives, he learns not to let himself be ruled by fear, but rather to acknowledge it and act in spite of it-to let it pass through him. The emails, recipes, and rules interspersed throughout sometimes give the narrative a disjointed feeling, but short chapters make this an appropriate choice for reluctant readers. The book has tongue-in-cheek humor, a budding romance, some gross recipes, and even a fantastic porker. Its message of taking control of one's fate will appeal to every kid.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Kirkus Reviews
Starring a Canadian teenager whose entire family on one side has for centuries been killed by lightning and a small, pink companion pig who is the brains of the pair for all that she can only oink, this boarding-school tale labors at times but achieves a certain amount of offbeat appeal. Still angry at his mother for being fatally struck too soon, Newton checks into the Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival, determined to score top marks while eluding the bolt that has his name on it. Tackling a curriculum that mixes conventional studies with instruction in disaster and wilderness survival, he succeeds, at least in part-with help from Josephine, a self-possessed piglet acquired in the course of creating a mystery-meat truffle quiche (recipe included) for a class assignment. Understandably tense given his circumstances, but also temperamental and given to treating would-be friends badly, Newton isn't particularly likable, but readers will at least sympathize with him-and Jerry Potts makes an entertaining riff on the likes of Hogwarts, Lemony Snicket's Prufrock Prep or the Axis Academy in Catherine Jinks's Evil Genius (2007). (Fantasy. 11-13)
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