[Sara]

I loved reading Hypergifted! Another excellent book! I did catch on as to how the videos were generated before this mystery was solved.  It was the bottom of page 202 where I first suspected it, even though this mystery isn’t revealed until page 241.

I have a question. How is it that Noah was unable to discern that Porquette was pregnant instead of sick when he did it so readily with Beatrice in “Ungifted”?

Granted, one is a dog and the other is a pig. Porquette was displaying the same symptoms which Noah observed in “Ungifted” (pages 168-169) to discern pregnancy in animals (e.g. languid posture).

This isn’t the first time a mascot was pregnant, rather than sick. That one should have occurred to me earlier. After all, Bruno and Boots (way back in Book 1) had their experiences with a mascot who they didn’t realize was pregnant: Myrtle, “The Cougars had a mascot, a thirty-pound alley cat”. Bruno and Donovan had the exact same reaction with: “We’re a father!”

Typical Noah. He programmed a bot which went rogue and launched golf balls. It’s not much of a stretch for another one of Noah’s programs to look deleted when it actually isn’t and to produce videos.

Looking forward to a Book 4! I know that’s a definite maybe. If Donavan is the protagonist, perhaps the title could be “Quasi-gifted”? Or “Ne’er-gifted”? Donovan has his smarts, just a different type of smarts than those of exceptional IQs.

Hi, Sara,

Thanks for the report on HYPERGIFTED. You're getting too smart for me! In defense, I have to say that a dog is a small enough animal that you can almost spot the puppy towards the end of its term. But a pig is huge, and going to be round and fat anyway. As for "We're a father!" at least I didn't steal it from some other author, right?

Hope you're watching for SLEEPLESS, which is going to be released early in July.

And IF there's going to be a 4th book, and IF Donovan is to be the star, I might just call it QUASI-GIFTED. Brilliant!

                                     Thanks again, Sara.                                                                 -----Gordon Korman-----

[Sara]

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for answering my question!

I am definitely watching for Sleepless! Looking forward to reading it!

Glad you like the title of Quasi-gifted!  I understand the Ifs.

Sara

[Raymond Jardine]

@Sara: Your astute insights about HYPERGIFTED would have been a great addition to the Kormaniacs Book Club earlier this year. You're the only one who caught the "We're a father!" repeat (and we discussed a lot of "Easter eggs" and callbacks to earlier Korman books!).

If you want to read the whole chapter-by-chapter comments from the book club, they're here: https://gordonkorman.com/forum?t=32014. (And the book club never closes, so add any thoughts/questions/trivia there if you feel inspired.)

I'm still holding out for the next -gifted series installment to be "Regifted," in which Donovan gets conked on the head and wakes up with acquired savant syndrome, leading to being reunited with his ASD buddies in their new magnet high school.

Anyhow, the Kormaniacs will probably look at SLEEPLESS shortly after its release, and you should definitely be part of that discussion!

[Sara]

Hi Raymond,

I am not going to promise anything. The book club sounds like fun. I will take a look and see if I want to make comments.

Sara