The League of Unexceptional Children Proves that Sometimes it’s Great to Be Average

Today’s kids are faced with the unrelenting pressure to be special, brilliant, beautiful, athletic, outgoing, in a word—exceptional. From getting into the Talented and Gifted Program starting in elementary school, through overscheduling AP classes, violin lessons, tennis, French tutors, all the way to the ever competitive college admissions process, kids are constantly given the message that they are not just expected to succeed, but to excel and be the BEST they can be. But what if the best they can be still lands them somewhere in the middle? What if you’re an introverted kid who finds standing out from the crowd to be terrifying, not thrilling? For overachieving kids who claw their way up the playground ladder to be #1, there are already plenty of books up their alley, from Divergent to The Hunger Games.
But what if you’re just an ordinary kid? Is there room for normal in today’s high-pressure, overachiever society?

Gitty Daneshvari (of the Monster High and School of Fear series) has made two very ordinary twelve-year olds the protagonists of the first book in her delightful and refreshing new series The League of Unexceptional Children. Jonathan Murray and Shelley Brown are so ordinary that even their classmates and teachers find it hard to remember their names. (“But has your name always been Jonathan?” Jonathan’s teacher Mr. Dunlop asks, once again mistaking him for a new student.) Both Jonathan and Shelley have nondescript features and quiet voices—they don’t excel in school, in sports, or in personality. But this utter averageness ends up lending them a superpower they didn’t realize was valuable: a virtual invisibility cloak.
When the Vice President of the United States is kidnapped, and the country’s highly classified and extremely valuable documents are at risk, the nation needs to call in its secret weapon, a group of spies even the head of the FBI and CIA don’t know about—The League of Unexceptional Children. This League, founded by President Eisenhower after “seeing how his granddaughter effortlessly eavesdropped while wandering around the White House,” is the most top secret of government spy operations, and reports directly to the current President. The League is recruiting two new members for this urgent mission, the last hope for a country on the brink of disaster. And two ordinary kids are not easy to find these days.
Jonathan and Shelley are called out of class by special agent Hammett Humphries and given the unbelievable news, (even they think there must be some mistake), that they are going to become government spies, and the newest members of the League of Unexceptional Children.
Why us they, and the reader, ask?
“Because you blend in. You are right there in the world’s blind spot.” Jonathan and Shelley stared, mouths agape, at Hammett as he managed to praise them for the very asset they each loathed—their averageness.
Thus sets off a page-turning caper that is both action-packed, and filled with laugh out loud humor. Daneshvari, herself a self-proclaimed reject of her school’s Talented & Gifted program, manages to tell a fun and compelling story of two very ordinary kids given an extraordinary mission, and how they are able to succeed where their more exceptional classmates could not.
“You may not believe it now, but in the end, you’ll wish all your spies were as unexceptional as we are…” Shelley states proudly at the book’s conclusion, as she realizes that perhaps being truly unexceptional might just be special after all.
The League of Unexceptional Children is in stores October 20!