The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5

A surprisingly good read that explores the impact of a new and glittery School for the Gifted plonked down in a privileged Colorado enclave. Crystal Academy — with the best of intents — seems to draw out the worst in a set of parents who had until this point been perfectly happy with their children’s schooling. The book’s epigraph — penned by the author’s mother — sums it up nicely: “There is something so tantalizing about having a gifted child that some parents will go to almost any lengths to prove they have one.”

The story follows the four families associated with through the various stages: learning about the school, making the “first cut,” building up a case for “the whole child,” and on to the final cut. Emerging from the narrative are arguments for and against the venture, rants by parent’s whose children didn’t make the first cut, and the lengths parents go to — surprising even to those making them — to get their children in. Within the well detailed descriptions of the eight parents (and a brief description of a Quechuan family from the “wrong side of town” whose child is also under consideration) we are presented with a variety of ideas, worries, hopes, machinations, hypocrisy, entitlement, and interesting permutations on liberalism. Never boring and full of moral quandaries fascinating to the uninvolved bystander (me).

From a diversity viewpoint, it was interesting to me that the father characters were all a little sucky — weak or wildly irresponsible or perfect in every way … but dead. The wives were stronger, more interesting, and possessed decent cores, albeit cores that get derailed by the glittery object stressor. The (male) author gives only one of the parents a completely decent, honest, and calm personality: Azra — the only non-Caucasian in the group. I’m always interested in the underlying message here!

Fast, absorbing, read — I wasn’t able to empathize with all of the parents or the steps they took, and I disagree with *most* of the arguments pro and con the school. I’m a big, big, believer in gifted education, but mostly I wish we could educate each person in his/her own style, at her/his own pace, and with all the stimulation and support s/he needs.