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Dolbin School for the Extraordinary
Even superheros have bullies.
Jake Cooper is a 4th grader at Kane elementary school, life is normal. Math, Reading, PE, and bullies are normal part of his week. Until he discovers he can throw his bully 60 feet through a window. At Dolbin he discovers he is not alone. Running 100 miles per hour, healing quickly, shutting down electronics with the snap of a finger, are just the first Extraordinary skills Jake discovers.
How is the school kept secret? How do children out run run cars, throw people through windows. and survive horrific accidents without the world discovering their existence?
As Professor Guinness explains, " most people don't want to believe when they see the Extraordinary right in front of them."
Will you believe?
Dolbin School for the Extraordinary is a 27,000 word middle grade story, about friendship, superheros, and working together to stop bullies.
Jake Cooper is a 4th grader at Kane elementary school, life is normal. Math, Reading, PE, and bullies are normal part of his week. Until he discovers he can throw his bully 60 feet through a window. At Dolbin he discovers he is not alone. Running 100 miles per hour, healing quickly, shutting down electronics with the snap of a finger, are just the first Extraordinary skills Jake discovers.
How is the school kept secret? How do children out run run cars, throw people through windows. and survive horrific accidents without the world discovering their existence?
As Professor Guinness explains, " most people don't want to believe when they see the Extraordinary right in front of them."
Will you believe?
Dolbin School for the Extraordinary is a 27,000 word middle grade story, about friendship, superheros, and working together to stop bullies.
130 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 11, 2013
15 people are currently reading
199 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 2, 2015
I liked it, but it seemed to end a little too abruptly to know what was happening. Overall it was a great book, I'd recommend it to others. (got this from a Goodreads giveaway)
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December 17, 2013I know that the intention of the First Reads program is to get books out to readers so that they can review them and increase interest among their friends and followers. I hate to leave a poor review on any book, but especially a book that was provided to me free of charge and with enthusiasm. I've decided not to give a star rating for this book, and instead of a review I'm going to type up the notes that I would give this, were it provided to me as a first draft by a member of my writing group.
The 'copyright' page includes a note of appreciation to the person who helped with editing. The thanks were, unfortunately, given too soon. There is nary a page that doesn't have an error on it, from misuse of "you're" to missing words to tense changes (past tense to present tense back to past
tense in the same sentence), etc.
The chapters are too short, practically nothing happens in each (they average 3 pages).
I have 3 younger brothers, and I can say with absolute certainty: 10-year-old boys do not cry that much, especially to the point of "sobbing", definitely not in front of their parents, adult authority figures, and strangers, and absolutely not over such minor things as changing schools. A 10-year-old boy who has a sudden shock and finds out he's moving and leaving his school and his one
friend will stomp, he'll kick things, he'll throw things, and when he's alone with nobody to see he might wipe away a few tears, but he won't "sob" over every little thing that happens, in front of adult strangers. Jake sobs at least 4 times.
Actions don't match. An example to show what I mean: a woman sitting at her desk 'looks up from her computer and smiles' then 'sits back down again'. She never stood up. Less of a problem but still inaccurate: Jake sits back because he's frozen in fear. If he's frozen in fear he's not calmly sitting back in his chair, is he? (In this case, being "frozen in fear" was far too hyperbolic anyway)
Jake keeps overreacting to the same events. He sees the school from the helicopter and is amazed, ok. Then time passes as they get closer, land, get out, and he sees the same things, and his jaw drops. What? They go inside, start the tour, he sees the same students doing the same things he saw from the air and the ground, and his mouth falls open. No!
As a part of that, everybody's mouth falls open constantly. Jake, the PE teacher, everybody shows surprise, shock, whatever with jaws or mouths falling or dropping open. This really doesn't happen in life, and it certainly doesn't happen every few minutes.
Unrealistic dialogue: people use contractions. Hyperbole everywhere (Jake "screams" when he should "exclaim").
The story is told from the third-person, limited (subjective) narrative voice. Except every once in awhile it jumps to the third-person omniscient. You can't do that in writing. You can't tell the story from the thoughts and perspective of a single character throughout the entire book, except for the occasional paragraph or sentence where you leap into the head of another character and tell the reader what they're thinking.
Similar to that, Jake occasionally has knowledge that he has had no way to receive. He sees a line of boys and knows which one is Henry, which one is Cal, when he's never met them before. He knows that the girl in a classroom he has just walked into for the very first time is named Sarah Johnson, despite no name tags or seating charts.
Too many Johnsons, by the way. Yes it's a common last name, but in a novel there shouldn't be only two non-main characters mentioned in a classroom that both have the same last name.
Mark is also an extra? He found out less than a day after Jake did? No. NO NO NO. This is lazy storytelling. Then again with Brad? No. I can't emphasize enough how not ok this is.
The back of the book starts with "even superheros have bullies" and when Mark arrives at Dolbin he asks Jake if there are bullies there and Jake thinks and says "yes". But there aren't. There have been no bullies, no instances of bullying. The only negative thing that has happened is David, and David isn't a bully. He's a ten year old with deep psychological problems that he isn't taking out on other students in a bullying way. He's basically exploding with anger and fear at anything in a 10 foot radius. This is not bullying.
This is not a story. This is the introduction of a story. It's actually the introduction of either of the first two XMen movies (kids find out they have extraordinary abilities that the general population doesn't have, they get quickly spirited away to a special school for kids like them). The movies, though, have a story arc that this book doesn't ever get to.
So the lesson to take away from this was that once you're physically stronger than your bully, you have all the power? That's not ok. Once you have a big group of friends who are willing to be unkind to and ostracize your bully, you have all the power? These are not good lessons.
The 'copyright' page includes a note of appreciation to the person who helped with editing. The thanks were, unfortunately, given too soon. There is nary a page that doesn't have an error on it, from misuse of "you're" to missing words to tense changes (past tense to present tense back to past
tense in the same sentence), etc.
The chapters are too short, practically nothing happens in each (they average 3 pages).
I have 3 younger brothers, and I can say with absolute certainty: 10-year-old boys do not cry that much, especially to the point of "sobbing", definitely not in front of their parents, adult authority figures, and strangers, and absolutely not over such minor things as changing schools. A 10-year-old boy who has a sudden shock and finds out he's moving and leaving his school and his one
friend will stomp, he'll kick things, he'll throw things, and when he's alone with nobody to see he might wipe away a few tears, but he won't "sob" over every little thing that happens, in front of adult strangers. Jake sobs at least 4 times.
Actions don't match. An example to show what I mean: a woman sitting at her desk 'looks up from her computer and smiles' then 'sits back down again'. She never stood up. Less of a problem but still inaccurate: Jake sits back because he's frozen in fear. If he's frozen in fear he's not calmly sitting back in his chair, is he? (In this case, being "frozen in fear" was far too hyperbolic anyway)
Jake keeps overreacting to the same events. He sees the school from the helicopter and is amazed, ok. Then time passes as they get closer, land, get out, and he sees the same things, and his jaw drops. What? They go inside, start the tour, he sees the same students doing the same things he saw from the air and the ground, and his mouth falls open. No!
As a part of that, everybody's mouth falls open constantly. Jake, the PE teacher, everybody shows surprise, shock, whatever with jaws or mouths falling or dropping open. This really doesn't happen in life, and it certainly doesn't happen every few minutes.
Unrealistic dialogue: people use contractions. Hyperbole everywhere (Jake "screams" when he should "exclaim").
The story is told from the third-person, limited (subjective) narrative voice. Except every once in awhile it jumps to the third-person omniscient. You can't do that in writing. You can't tell the story from the thoughts and perspective of a single character throughout the entire book, except for the occasional paragraph or sentence where you leap into the head of another character and tell the reader what they're thinking.
Similar to that, Jake occasionally has knowledge that he has had no way to receive. He sees a line of boys and knows which one is Henry, which one is Cal, when he's never met them before. He knows that the girl in a classroom he has just walked into for the very first time is named Sarah Johnson, despite no name tags or seating charts.
Too many Johnsons, by the way. Yes it's a common last name, but in a novel there shouldn't be only two non-main characters mentioned in a classroom that both have the same last name.
Mark is also an extra? He found out less than a day after Jake did? No. NO NO NO. This is lazy storytelling. Then again with Brad? No. I can't emphasize enough how not ok this is.
The back of the book starts with "even superheros have bullies" and when Mark arrives at Dolbin he asks Jake if there are bullies there and Jake thinks and says "yes". But there aren't. There have been no bullies, no instances of bullying. The only negative thing that has happened is David, and David isn't a bully. He's a ten year old with deep psychological problems that he isn't taking out on other students in a bullying way. He's basically exploding with anger and fear at anything in a 10 foot radius. This is not bullying.
This is not a story. This is the introduction of a story. It's actually the introduction of either of the first two XMen movies (kids find out they have extraordinary abilities that the general population doesn't have, they get quickly spirited away to a special school for kids like them). The movies, though, have a story arc that this book doesn't ever get to.
So the lesson to take away from this was that once you're physically stronger than your bully, you have all the power? That's not ok. Once you have a big group of friends who are willing to be unkind to and ostracize your bully, you have all the power? These are not good lessons.
December 25, 2013
I received this free book from the goodreads-first-reads giveaway. Overall, it was a nice story but I felt that it abruptly ended but it didn't really develop the characters before it ended. Although Jake was a likeable character, I didn't understand why the author would introduce the bully into the school towards the end. I felt a few more chapters on how to deal with the bully and how the bully was converted to a nice person would have been a very nice teaching lesson to kids.
December 2, 2014
Absolutely loved this book! If it wasn't signed and put into my collection, I might actually have let my little sister-in-law read it! Hahahaha! Awesome!
May 16, 2020
My son will like it
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews