ALA Booklist (Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2017)

This sequel to Ungifted (2012) turns the original premise on its head when Noah, an off-the-charts genius, enrolls in an ordinary middle school. Clueless, optimistic, and determined to fit in, he fails miserably until his friend Donovan performs a heroic act and insists that Noah take the credit. Suddenly Noah rockets from superdweeb to Superkid. The amusing first-person narration rotates among several kids, from Noah and Donovan to a head cheerleader and an überjock, who all offer refreshingly different perspectives. Managing a large cast of characters with ease, Korman creates a comedy of compounded errors leading to a public disaster and, strangely enough, a happy ending.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Babymouse has a lot to learn when she gets her first smartphone. Her forays into the quagmire of social media intensify her obsession with popularity and make her vulnerable to the middle schooler's nightmare: public humiliation. Babymouse's phone troubles are LOL funny, but her misguided attempts to reinvent herself will definitely resonate with fans. Black-and-white cartoon illustrations are integral to advancing the story, second in the spinoff series.

Kirkus Reviews

In the sequel to Ungifted (2012), Noah Youkilis gets himself kicked out of the Academy for Scholastic Distinction to see what it's like at regular middle school.Noah's best friend, Donovan Curtis, can't understand why such a genius would come to Hardcastle Middle School on purpose. He would be a target, a "wedgie looking for a place to happen." Noah is 4 feet 11 inches tall, the size of a fourth-grader, with the posture of an "oversize praying mantis." He has a 200-plus IQ, a grating voice, and a "rocket-scientist vocabulary." But Noah feels that "being a genius isn't hard.…What's hard is being normal." He's never had to work to get grades before, so now he goes out of his way to pick activities he's bad at so he can improve at something, such as wood shop and cheerleading. But when Donovan saves a runaway truck from crashing into Megan Mercury's house, Noah takes credit for the heroic feat and nearly loses Donovan as a friend. As in Ungifted, Korman uses multiple first-person points of view to reveal characters' responses to Noah and to show how characters change when supergifted Noah becomes superhero Noah. The narrative moves swiftly and even becomes madcap toward the end as Donovan regains a friendship and becomes a hero in his own right. Characters are white by default.Another chortleworthy outing from Korman. (Fiction. 10-14)

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7 Laughs abound in Korman's satisfying sequel to Ungifted . Donovan is the same goofy, impulse-driven kid that got put into the TaG class instead of suspension by a superintendent's slip of the pen. His instinctive dive into a runaway truck averts a disaster but then precipitates a series of mishaps when his nerdy friend Noah, a downwardly mobile transfer from a magnet school, decides to take the credit for Donovan's heroic act in order to protect him from the wrath of his ex-Marine brother-in-law. Told from the point of view of several of Donovan's classmates in both his regular school and the magnet school that he still attends once a week for the robotics team, Korman shows the varying perceptions of heroism among Donovan's broadly drawn community: the unsympathetic cheerleader Megan, the lacrosse-playing entitled bully, the nerds on the robotics team, the rigid authoritarian brother-in-law who is helpless when dealing with a new infant, and the plastic television host on the track of a news story. Korman expertly holds readers' attention with a fast-paced plot culminating in a climactic denouement at the robotics meeting. Eventually, the true hero is unmasked, relationships are healed within and outside his family, and once again kindness and tolerance win the day. VERDICT Humorous, relatable, and full of heart, Korman's gift for understanding the middle school mind is on full display. Jane Barrer, United Nations International School, New York City