Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is a great read for five or sixth graders. This book follows Lucy, an orphan sixth-grader that has acquired savant syndrome. Acquired savant syndrome is gained by slight damage to the brain. Effects of this are learning new skills or becoming extremely talented in one area. In Lucy's case, after she held a metal fence during a thunderstorm, she became a math genius. Lucy hasn't been in school for years; she has been homeschooled by her granny since she acquired savant syndrome. Suddenly, her granny decides to enroll her into the local middle school, to help her make friends. Although Lucy has made acquaintances in an online math site, her granny wants her to meet people in real life.

On the first day of school, Lucy meets a girl named Windy. Windy is loud, outspoken, and likes to gossip a bit. They become friends on the bus and find out they have the same homeroom teacher. But Lucy has a big problem: She has OCD. The digits of pi randomly flow into her head and makes it impossible to focus. To fix this, Lucy has to tap her toe three times or sit and stand in a chair three times. She is also obsessed with cleanness and carries wet wipes and hand sanitizer wherever she goes. Lucy decides to hide her genius in school and pretend to be average. She always purposely gets one or two questions wrong in math, and sometimes skips assignments so her score is always in the eighties or nineties.

At school, Lucy also meets a boy named Levi. Levi loves to take pictures and post them on an art website. He makes a bad impression on Lucy at first, but a school-wide project makes them friends. The whole school is doing a Cougars Care project, where they must work with 2 other people to help the community. Windy and Lucy pair up, but need a third person. Windy asks all the girls in their grade, but everyone already has a group. So the girls are stuck with Levi. Will Lucy be able to fit in at school and find a good project to work on? Read the book to find out!

This book is great at depicting a real-life school. It really helps show how some kids struggle through school. The plot is just the right pace, though sometimes the words are a little vague. The character development is great and I can see the characters change throughout the book, even if there is only a little bit for some people. I got this book from Amazon, and it is on Overdrive as well.

Have fun reading!!

Destinie