Cody, Matthew.
POWERLESS
New York : Knopf, 2009
IL 5-8, RL 5.3
ISBN 0375855955

(2 booktalks)

Welcome to Noble’s Green, Pennsylvania---the safest town on earth!

 “The safest town on earth?” thought Daniel, “Couldn’t sound lamer.”

When he moves to his new home in Noble’s Green, 12-yr-old Daniel Corrigan notices that there’s something distinctly odd about some of the kids in town.  After one of them literally saves his life, he discovers that some of them are equipped with superpowers, and they’ve been using them to protect the local citizens.

There is one power that his classmates don’t have, however.  They haven’t been able to discover the source of these powers, or an explanation for why, when a “super-kid” turns 13, both their powers and all memories of having had them, disappear.  When Daniel embarks on a mission to solve this mystery, he uncovers a plot that is more serious, and more evil, than any of them could have imagined.

Will Daniel and his new friends be able to triumph over evil before their 13th birthdays arrive, and leave them POWERLESS???  (New Hampshire Great Stone Face nominee, 2011)

Booktalk #2

Daniel and his family have moved in with his grandmother to help take care of her.  Daniel has made some new friends, and when he discovers that they have super powers, he tries to help them figure out where the powers are coming from and why his friends lose their powers (and any memory of ever having had them) when they turn thirteen.  This action-packed page-turner of a book will keep you on the edge of your seat to the very end and make you wish that somehow you could have a super power too!  (Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Program Booktalks 2012-2013)