The Hadley Academy For The Improbably Gifted, fresh mid-school reading

The Hadley Academy For The Improbably Gifted sounds like a young adult hit movie, doesn’t it? In my mind’s eye I see the characters already cast and to an extent that’s completely accurate. The Hadley Academy is a young adult novel that establishes a new world, one that exists within sight of ours, but can only be seen by a few, select people. See, it has similarities, ideas or tropes that other well known middle grade fiction books try to achieve.  Author Conor Grennan wastes no time in creating this slightly alternate world and dropping readers right in the middle of it.

Jack is our main character and he’s giving a presentation in school about some wacky conspiracy theory. Immediately after class he’s whisked away to an unknown destination that just might validate the things he was being made fun of in class.

The Hadley Academy wastes no time in getting the action started. Within the first 40 pages of the book up is down, new authority figures are introduced and Jack is being told that he’s the key to saving everything. Jack is now at The Hadley Academy, an elite school where twelve teams are trained to prevent otherworldly figures from taking over the world. This has global consequences that would kill countless people, unleash true evil and has supernatural outliers with monsters and magic aplenty.

Thankfully for humanity, a 13^th team has been grandfathered in with Jack and three other outsiders being allowed on that team. Each team must train in virtual simulators, think a Star Trek Holodeck, but on a bigger scale. Teams will compete against one another and each member has been given certain powers, with their powers reacting to other people’s powers in certain ways. This was a lot for us to think through and process, thankfully our base knowledge of Pokémon assisted us.

 On the surface The Hadley Academy For The Improbably Gifted sounds like a young adult reader in the vein of Potter or Percy Jackson. And it is, for the most part, but because of all those factors, plus the detail that the book goes into it demos just a little bit higher. Those middle school readers who are ready for a detail driven book that’s worth paying attention for should check this out. Our 10 year old who is a voracious reader might be able to handle it. The chapters are as long as 14 pages long and require readers to pay attention so that small details don’t escape them.

There are two great surprises that upend what you think is going to happen. They happen in a very organic way that add to the story and don’t feel like a gimmick. Likewise the ending happens in a way that could easily jump off into another book or not. It’s a bit of a cliché, but if you’re looking for the next (slightly older) dystopian novel, check out The Haley Academy. It starts out like a rocket and will grab the attention of those who want a book where you don’t know what going to happen.