GRADY WHILL AND THE TEMPLETON CODEX

In Roman’s YA series starter, a teenager joins a secret academy in which kids discover and hone their superpowers.

Grady Whill was so young when his parents died that he doesn’t remember them. Nowthe 14-year-old lives with his paternal uncle Leo, a radio DJ, and works part time to help keep the household afloat. At school, Grady and his bright, loyal best friend, Aarush Patel, who is autistic, have humiliating run-ins with football player Elwood Bledsoe, a relentless bully. Like many other kids their age, they dream of getting into Templeton Academy, an exclusive high school that only selects students whom they deem to have “rare talent.” Amazingly, Templeton accepts both Grady and Aarush; unfortunately, Elwood will also be joining them. The isolated academy, on an island off the Port of Miami, isn’t quite what Grady expected. There’s a lot of baffling stuff there, including a class called Subconscious Studies; there’s also a focus on students’ building their individual “powers”—which may include superpowers. The school’s creed, from which all the lessons of the school are drawn, is the enigmatic Codex—a highly secured ancient artifact that no one is allowed to see. Grady thinks about leaving Templeton, as he’s sure at least one teacher dislikes him, and Elwood continues to victimize him. But when he discovers an evil plan is afoot, he, Aarush, and their new school friends must find and unite their strengths, go up against some powerful people, and confront several of the island’s hidden dangers.

Overall, Roman keeps this opening installment rather vague. Leo, for example, cryptically disapproves of Grady’s attending Templeton but says nothing more than that Grady’s late grandfather wouldn’t be happy about it. Similarly, students learn the Codex’s quatrains and apparently apply them to their lives and academy lessons, but the ambiguous assignments include such things as a four-page paper on how “Looks can be deceiving.” As this is a novel of discovery, superpowers don’t dominate the proceedings, although a few characters’ special abilities do eventually crop up. The students also pick up valuable lessons along the way, such as that strength is more than simply physical. Grady, who narrates the story, is a sympathetic character who lost his beloved grandparents, who raised him from infancy, only a year before the events of the novel. Although he complains quite often at Templeton, he also has low self-esteem and wonders if he’s special enough to be at the academy. A superb set of supporting characters surrounds Grady—most notably Aarush, Aarush’s warmhearted cousin Pari, and Bailey Sloane, who delightfully takes no guff from anyone, including Elwood. Roman effectively depicts the island as a beautiful but mysterious and possibly dangerous place; one side of the island, for example, is a “craggy mountain with several jagged peaks,” but it’s coupled with a soft, “powdery” beach. Although readers will find that many questions linger at the end, the story promises to provide revelations in a subsequent volume.

A measured but absorbing tale featuring intriguing characters with largely untapped abilities.