The Gifted School: Bruce Holsinger (A book about a hobby)

I was pretty excited when I won this book in a giveaway. This was one I was excited to read about.

Holsinger brings up thought-provoking ideas of education, friendship, family, parenting, and so on that helped keep me reading until the end. All along I was waiting for these people to do "the right thing," but as I finished, I realized that I wasn't even sure what "the right thing" would be for each family.

I think the main question is "To what extent do parents go to see their child succeed, and at what point have they gone too far? Or can they go too far?" I haven't been a parent, so I struggle to answer that question, and I have a hard time asking myself what I would do in this situation. I like to think that I wouldn't push that hard, but with the pressure of my best friends as well as all of society, it would be hard to stop myself, I think.

Holsinger has five families, each one with several different problems, and while the problems are pretty stereotypical of a middle-age, middle-class, white family, by interlocking the separate families, he helps shake the stereotypes he brings up. And by dropping in this gifted school, he helps the story not be stereotypical by having such a unique problem. The story could have been very bland, very boring, and very "usual," but Holsinger does a nice job turning the stereotypes into unique situations.

I must admit that I didn't like the ending. I thought Xander's project was a bit too out there, and the results were too guessable. That's where he fails to add in a unique touch, and keeps it stereotypical. I would have liked something a bit more new and fresh, but that's okay.

I do wonder if such a school has existed, and I'm sure it has, and so I wonder how those communities handle such a school. I can see this being a very real thing in our society, as every parent wants his child to succeed. Such a school would tear a community apart, and I'm not sure the resolution would be as perfect as Holsinger's resolution was.

I'm stretching it a bit to fulfill the prompt, because it's not fully about a hobby, but each child has his or her own hobbies, and those hobbies play a big role in the plot, soccer, chess, horses, etc. The hobbies are important and take up a lot of pages, so I figured this was a stretch I could pull off.