The Minor Miracle by Meredith Davis

The Minor Miracle is a light-hearted, fun read with lots of heart, perfect for fans of comic books, superheroes, and friends.

The Minor Miracle: The Amazing Adventures of Noah Minor by Meredith Davis. WaterBrook, 2024, 272 pages.

Reading Level: Middle grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-12

To [the seventh graders at Rim Rock Middle School], I’m nothing special. I’m just an average kid standing outside the library with my two extraordinary friends, Haley and Rodney, waiting in line to have our vision tested.

What most of Noah’s friends at Rim Rock Middle School don’t know is that he miraculously survived a 16-story fall as an infant. His staunch friends, Haley and Rodney, are both more superficially talented than Noah is, but he’s confident that this is the year he will go places. After all, he made the A team for basketball as a seventh grader. Things are looking up.

What would be awesome for a kid who loves super heroes? Finding out he has superpowers, of course. What would be even more awesome for a dorky seventh grader who deals with bullies? Using those superpowers to put people in their place. Noah finds out at his eye test that he actually does have superpowers: he’s a “Gravitar,” which means he has the ability to manipulate gravity. Cool, huh? The big catch is that he’s now a covert operative, in a secret government training program. He can’t even tell his closest friends, much less wow his other classmates. To complicate matters further, Noah’s uncle Saul (the one who originally dropped him from the 16-story building, as a matter of fact) seems to know all about Noah’s powers. And he’s telling Noah something different than the secret organization is. Who can Noah trust?

Noah’s last name is Minor, and the title (The Minor Miracle) references Noah’s own miraculous survival as an infant but also the many minor miracles that play out through the course of the book. These aren’t miracles in the sense of the New Testament, just the usual middle school woes with a hefty does of nefarious villains and superpowers thrown in. Noah must work through misunderstandings with his two besties, figure out how to adapt to his changing body and newfound skills, and think hard about who he can really trust. Sounds a lot like most seventh graders’ experiences, doesn’t it? The Minor Miracle is an easy read with comic-book style art and a quickly moving plot. Noah’s fast-paced, first person, present tense narration drove me crazy, but current seventh graders are likely to eat it up, particularly because Noah sounds, well, like a seventh grader. A great choice for a classroom library, school library, or fun library checkout!

Bottom Line: The Minor Miracle is a light-hearted, fun read with lots of heart, perfect for fans of comic books, superheroes, and friends.

Considerations:

• Profanity: One instance that could be a prayer, early on in the book.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Meredith Davis is also the author of Her Own Two Feet, a completely different sort of book!
• Reviews: For more super hero and action-packed fun, check out Almost Super by Marion Jensen and El Deafo by CeCe Bell.
• Reviews: Looking for fun middle-school reads that tackle fitting in and friends? Try Maple’s Theory of Fun, The School for Whatnots, The Not-so-Boring Letters of Private Nobody, or The Wishmakers.

We are participants in the Amazon LLC affiliate program; purchases you make through affiliate links like the one below may earn us a commission. Read more here.

Buy The Minor Miracle from Amazon.