The Wild Robot meets Restart when Colorado’s unluckiest foster kid battles a rogue AI robot at school.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The AI Incident by J.E. Thomas, which is out July 8th 2025.
Malcolm Montgomery is the new kid at Shirley Chisholm Charter Middle School. In no time at all, he’s been slapped with the weird kid label. Is it because he’s a foster kid who’s been in nine homes? Or maybe because he burps when he gets nervous…which is often? Malcolm has a plan to finally get adopted by a forever family before it’s too late. But then on Visiting Professionals’ Day, his school invites Dr. Alphonse Hatch, president of Hatch-ED—one of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence companies in the state—to give a presentation. Dr. Hatch brings his AI-powered robot, and events get set in motion that create…THE INCIDENT.
An irresistible MG novel about the role of AI in schools and in our lives…and what it means to be human.
Here are the facts: THE INCIDENT started at Shirley Chisholm Charter Middle School on the last Monday in August, which was also the second week of the new school year.
It was Visiting Professionals Day at Shirley Double-C. Cars, trucks, and one large white van parked bumper-to-bumper in front of the average, unassuming, three-story brick building located in the heart of an average, unassuming neighborhood in northeast Denver, Colorado.
Fourteen of the fifteen students in Mr. Pearson’s Seventh Grade Section C Homeroom swarmed inside like honeybees when their teacher unlocked the door.
Faster was better and fastest was best because Section C had four long tables instead of desks. Each table had four orange plastic chairs. There was plenty of room for everyone—but until class started, the first row was the place to be. Lucky students snagged chairs. The rest plopped on the table or sprawled on the floor nearby.
Malcolm Montgomery didn’t surge in with the others.
He was a quiet, skinny kid with sandy brown skin, furrowed brows, a nervous gut, and an Afro that was a size-and-a-half too big for his head.
If there were a prize for being unlucky, Malcolm would’ve won it.
His parents died in a car accident when he was a baby. He didn’t have other relatives, so he’d bounced around in foster care. He’d lived in infant nurseries, group centers, and nine different foster homes—but up until now nobody had thought he was special. Until he cracked the adoption code, he was just a regular boy with anxious burps and twitchy feet.
“Hey, New Kid!” Kevin Eiffel’s voice soared above the rowdy first-row chatter.
He stabbed a finger at Malcolm. He didn’t have to point. Malcolm had only moved to this part of town a few weeks ago. No one knew him here except his caseworker, Mr. Ahmed, and his latest foster mom: a grumpy, divorced woman named Mrs. Bettye.
“Rumor is you think you’re a comedian,” Kevin said. His long, narrow face twisted into a smirk.
“Tell a joke.”
Malcolm’s stomach rumbled. THIS was what he got for double-checking his How to Get Adopted checklist in science class last week. Kevin spied the box about becoming a joke master before he could shove the sheet away.
“Uhhhh . . .” Malcolm shifted his weight. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right. “Why did the vegetables . . . I mean, the crow stand…er, the statue…”
Jade Grint whirled in her chair, blond hair flying. “Speed up, dude! Even my grandma knows that joke. It’s all over the internet.”
She tossed her head. An apricot-colored birthmark peeked through her bangs.
“Why did the scarecrow win a prize? Because it was ‘outstanding’ in its field. Duh!” She made air quotes around outstanding and said it like two words: out and standing.
Ohhh. Now Malcolm got it. Hard things always seemed easy when someone else did them. He shoved his hands in the pockets of the ratty blue hoodie he’d worn since fifth grade.
“He’s in my PE class,” Jade announced. “He’s not funny.” Then she caught him staring at her birthmark and narrowed her eyes.
Malcolm gulped. Staring was rude, yeah . . . but sometimes it was too hard not to. The birthmark looked like a tiny baby footprint smack in the middle of her forehead.
Jade brushed her bangs over her birthmark and growled.
Malcolm looked away fast. There were two Grints at Shirley Double-C. Jade was supposed to be the good twin.
“It’s funny that he thinks he’s funny,” Ainsley Canady said.
Ainsley flicked waist-length locs over her shoulder. Her hair tangled with Jade’s. Black strands mixed with blond. Both girls giggled. They whispered something in secret girl code then swung their heads in circles, whipping their hair around like Ferris wheels.
Malcolm felt the part of his brain that was supposed to understand stuff like this switch off. The other part—the part he was sure was his prefrontal lobe, because the internet said prefrontal lobes controlled planning and logical thinking—kept tick-tick-ticking away.
Ever since he’d found an article called Lucky Foster Kid Gets Forever Home on a library computer, Malcolm’s prefrontal lobe had been obsessed—O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D!—with figuring out how to earn a family.
He scoured the internet whenever he could borrow a laptop.
He took notes.
He wrote plans.
He made a checklist.
And he set a deadline. A big deadline! A deadline that was deadlining soon!
His research said it was almost impossible for teenagers to get adopted (that turned up again and again) and that it could take six months to finalize adoption paperwork. So Malcolm needed his forever parents by the time he turned twelve-and- a-half. Which was In. Two. Months!
Not a lot of time. Especially when he was a . . .
“New Kid!” Kevin bellowed. He hopped on a chair. “Where’s my joke?”
#9 on the checklist: Get along with everybody. Great . . .
“NEW KID!”
Excerpted from The AI Incident, by J.E. Thomas. Levine Querido, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.E. Thomas grew up near Colorado’s Front Range mountains. She spent her early summers stuffing grocery bags with books at the local library, reading feverishly, then repeating the process week after week. J.E. has bachelor’s degrees in Mass Communications and Political Science, as well as a master’s degree in Public Communications. Her first book, Control Freaks, was a People magazine Summer Must-Read and a “Best of the Best” pick by the Black Caucus of the ALA.
