57 pages • 1 hour read
David LubarHidden Talents
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Learning to Honor One’s Own Abilities
Martin’s friends at Edgeview think they’re unworthy as people, but Martin realizes they’re simply encumbered by unusual powers that they can learn to control. In mastering those abilities, the boys begin to see themselves as worthwhile, and Martin’s efforts lead him to his own powers and a surprising understanding of his own worth.
Torchie’s fire starting, Cheater’s suspicious test scores, Flinch’s strange luck with sports, Lucky’s closetful of found items, and Trash’s hurled objects all suggest boys with anger, coordination, or honesty issues. Martin digs deeper and figures out that each kid possesses a special ability—Torchie can control combustion, Cheater can read minds, Flinch can foretell the very-near future, Lucky mentally connects to lost items, and Trash can move objects with his mind.
Martin’s efforts to convince his friends that they’re not bad but super-powered fall on deaf ears, and the boys shun him. None of them want to believe Martin because each worries that such abilities would permanently mark them “freaks,” something they could never live down. Lucky intuits this early on: “If enough people call you crazy, maybe you begin to believe it, even if you aren’t’” (40).
Martin proves they each have a psychic power and points out that such abilities don’t affect their mental health. The kids realize they don’t have to tell others about their powers; instead, they can learn to control them and use them only when needed.
The boys’ efforts to master these strange abilities begin to pay off, and they use their talents to win trophies in town, fend off a gang bent on hurting them, defeat the bully Bloodbath, and save their school. Martin finally realizes he also has a special power and learns to use it to get along with others, especially his teachers.
Newly confident, the boys begin to improve their other skills. Martin does so well that he’s released from Edgeview; the other boys decide they, too, will get themselves released.
By accepting their unusual powers, the boys learn to accept themselves as people, improving their lives greatly. The book suggests that everyone has strong abilities of some sort; that embracing those strengths, instead of fearing them, leads to wonderful results; and that anyone can start on this path by looking inward for “the gifts we haven’t yet discovered” (28).
Learning to Be a Team
As the boys begin to accept and work with their powers, they forge a team that accomplishes good things. They learn to respect each other and themselves as team members. Martin discovers that, with or without a power, he, too, can make a difference by contributing to others with his own skills and wisdom.
At first, most of the kids around Martin simply hang out together. Their first big team achievement is to sneak away from Edgeview on Friday evenings and visit the local town, where they play arcade games. However, it’s not until they begin working with their various superpowers that their group melds more strongly together.
When he first broaches the idea that each boy has a unique ability, Martin nearly loses their friendship. He learns that it’s important to show how those abilities can help, and not hinder, each kid’s life. His theme becomes: “I have an answer, but it’ll take some work” (166).
With Martin’s help, Torchie learns to control, not just start, fires; Cheater practices simple changes to his test answers, so they don’t make the teacher think he’s cheating. Flinch rehearses avoiding Martin’s punches to disguise his ability to see what’s coming. Lucky learns how to retrieve lost objects without being accused of theft, and Trash attains pinpoint control over his ability to move things.
As their powers come under better control, the kids begin to coordinate. Local kids try to beat them up, but they work together to frighten those boys into running away. Bloodbath plans to cause chaos that will ruin the school’s inspection day, so the team uses their powers to stop him. Torchie, for example, puts out the lit fuses on small bombs set by Bloodbath; Trash, using only his mind, ties the bully and his friends’ shoelaces to table legs so they can’t start a fight in the cafeteria.
The inspectors choose Martin as their student witness. His friends prove to him that he, too, has a power that he can use to ace the interview. Inspired, Martin uses his new understanding to control his urge to insult others; his conversation with the inspectors helps save the school and improve it.
Martin works with the boys as they practice together, building their skills, and they, in turn, show him the truth about his own abilities. Together, the kids learn to be a tight knit group that uses its powers to do good things. They discover their worth, not simply as individuals but as team players.
Learning to Understand Others
All Martin sees in authority figures are bad people bent on hurting him. During his time at Edgeview, he begins to understand that they’re there to help, not hinder, and that much of his dislike for them comes from years of abuse by his father. Martin learns that he has the power to understand others’ deepest wants and needs and can use that knowledge to manage his interactions, so they’re more productive.
It doesn’t matter that several of Edgeview’s teachers like or want to help Martin; he insults them all equally. Neither they nor he realizes that when they get too near him to confront or encourage him, he becomes upset and lashes out. His sarcasm is rapier-sharp and always hits home.
These incidents sometimes give Martin deep feelings of guilt. He doesn’t want to insult his teachers, but somehow he can’t help it. He insults science teacher Mr. Briggs, the one who cares about him the most, then regrets it: “I started to feel like a real rat. Mr. Briggs had been nice to me, and the way I’d acted, I might as well have just kicked him in the crotch” (66).
As this realization grows, Martin also finds that his friends react badly to his over-enthusiastic insistence that they’re all super-powered. He realizes they’re afraid of those powers, so he develops ways to help them understand their abilities, not as threats but as opportunities, and to learn how to control them.
Martin soon discovers that he, too, has a superpower: He can sense others’ deepest sorrows and yearnings. Once he knows this, he can use it to understand better his teachers’ motives, which usually aren’t malicious at all. Importantly, he begins to understand adults as complicated people with their own problems. He learns from Cheater that the feared inspectors have minds filled with complications, problems, and confusion. They, and Martin’s teachers, are not one-dimensional authority figures but human beings who yearn for a better life, suffer from losses, and want to make a difference in the lives of kids, including Martin.
Finally, he realizes that the original source of his conflict with others is the mistreatment he has suffered from his dad’s verbal bullying. No longer can he blame outsiders for his anger: The conflicts come from his life history, and now he can do something about it.
Because he can read people’s feelings, Martin focuses on their most fervent desires and heartaches, and he begins to use that knowledge to help them feel good about themselves. His interactions with teachers improve until he’s released from Edgeview. Returning home, Martin struggles to get along better with his father: It’s his hardest lesson, but Martin senses progress there, too.
In these ways, Martin discovers better ways to deal with teachers and friends. His old, misplaced anger subsides, and now he can handle difficult encounters more deftly. Buoyed by this, Martin’s self-confidence grows, and his ability to get along with everyone, and with himself, improves rapidly.
