We were sent an advanced readers copy of Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich’s book ‘It Doesn’t Take a Genius’ for free to read and review. I finished the book this past week and all opinions shared in this review are my own.
The story centers around Emmett Charles, a brilliant student who excels at debate. Being smart seems to come easily to him and when he’s challenged he tends to make excuses and shy away from the challenge. That was my impression from the first few chapters of the book where Emmett decides not to participate in debate when he realizes that his opponent has the better argument and will win. I guess he is thinking that: You can’t lose if you don’t compete. Emmett has an older brother, Luke who will soon be going to an art high school in Maine and will be leaving Emmett. However, before that happens there is the Summer and all the things they can do together before Luke leaves. A further wrinkle in Emmett’s grand plans is that for part of the Summer Luke will be a junior counselor at Camp DuBois. This is an excellence camp for children of color.
Emmett manages to get into the Camp DuBois program behind the backs of his mother and brother. Emmett figures that he can spend tons of time with his brother if they are in the same place. His guiding force is to spend time with his brother but things do not go according to that plan. Luke is a junior counselor and he has many responsibilities. Emmett does not seem to understand this fully and gets very bent out of shape about it. Along the way we learn many things about Emmett and Luke and the family dynamic including the boys’ late father.
The book celebrates black culture and black artists of so many artistic styles. Famous names go flying around through the whole book in the context of the classes that Emmett is taking at Camp Dubois. This is not merely sleep away camp with S’Mores and camp games and songs. This is a camp where the best and brightest are enrolled and Emmett soon learns that he’s not the smartest person in the room any longer. As he comes to grips with that, with his brother leaving and with confronting and overcoming his fears he makes major strides to learn more about who he is over three intensely packed weeks of hard work and mind expanding conversations.
Emmett is also a skilled dancer and he tries out for the one remaining spot in Street Style one of the most intense programs at Camp DuBois. In many ways he excels in this program and then there are moments where he makes huge mistakes. There is one moment toward the end of the book where Emmett does something so selfish that I lost a lot of respect for how much he had grown up to that point. While he takes responsibility for his actions, mostly because he got caught, it fell flat for me. However, I can understand being that young, thirteen, where everything is changing in life and feelings are so intense at times that it feels like any moment will break you. I get that, I just was so disappointed in what he does. He was growing so much and I understand that making huge mistakes is a part of growing.
Overall the book was good, the supporting cast of characters are enjoyable especially Mr. Micah McDowell the teacher for Street Style. He is intense and gives Emmett some strong lessons in growing up and consequences for actions. Morea bout the book and the author can be found below.
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