The Spark, by Kristine Barnett – review

Jacob Barnett is a youthful prodigy. His IQ tested off the scale. At nine he began work on an original theory in astrophysics; aged 12 he became a paid academic researcher. He can play complicated musical pieces or learn foreign languages almost instantly and without tuition. As one researcher puts it, ‘Jake’s working memory is a piece of paper the size of a football field.’

Jacob’s mother, Kristine, comes from an Amish family — ‘not horse-and-buggy Amish, but city Amish’; her faith has directed her along the path she has taken with her extraordinary son. (It would be interesting to know the religious views of the young quantum physicist, but we’re not told.) Though she and her husband are college-educated, and unusual talents have cropped up in the family — Grandpa John was an eccentric inventor, Kristine’s sister was a precocious artist — there was little to prepare them for the reality of raising Jacob. They live in ‘working-class’ small-town Indiana. ‘We were an ordinary family and Jake was an ordinary baby,’ says Kristine, though the fact that at ten months Jacob had memorised the Spanish and Japanese as well as the English version of his favourite DVDs may strike readers as outside the ordinary.

At 14 months, Jacob seemed to lose skills and to retreat into a world of his own — a classic autistic regression. A lifetime of ‘special ed’ seemed to lie in store, but Kristine rebelled, and devoted herself to fanning the ‘spark’ which she believed still burned inside her son. She didn’t hothouse him; instead she tried to find ways of stimulating his interests while providing him with the wholesome all-American childhood (popcorn, ball games, campfires, church) in which she fervently believes.