Jolted

Newton Goddard Starker lives with a mysterious curse: his family attracts lightning.
 
Nearly all of the Starker family have died from lightning strikes, including Newton's beloved mother. Fourteen-year-old Newton, the last in the Starker line, is determined not to be next, and he may have found a way to beat the odds. He has enrolled at Jerry Potts Academy for Survival, a boarding school in Moose Jaw, Canada, whose motto is Survival Through Fierce Intelligence. Newton's ready to learn, and to be remembered in the school's Hall of Heroes.


What Newton hasn't counted on is the other students. For a boy who's spent most of his life in a protective dome, making friends is sometimes as challenging as surviving. Especially when he's vying for top marks with the dynamo Violet Quon.
Throw in a supertalented pig, students in kilts, wacky teachers, and some important questions about fate and the universe, and you've got an irresistible story that's as unique as Jerry Potts Academy.

Arthur Slade was raised in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan, Canada, and began writing at an early age. He received an English honors degree from the University of Saskatchewan, spent several years working in advertising, and is now a full-time fiction writer. He is the author of Dust, which won the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature; Tribes; Megiddo's Shadow; and The Hunchback Assignments. He lives in Saskatoon with his wife, Brenda Baker. Visit his Web site at www.arthurslade.com.