Starting junior high can feel intimidating when someone has spent their entire childhood being homeschooled. For 12-year-old Oliver Winters, the experience becomes even more complicated when his new school turns out to have a curriculum built around crime.
In Heist Jr. High: The Waywards, author Matt Jordan-Pummell introduces readers to Horizon Junior High, a secretive school populated by gifted young criminals. Releasing October 1, the novel is Matt’s middle-grade debut and the opening installment of the Heist Jr. High series.
A Very Different Kind of First Day
Oliver’s childhood has rarely followed a predictable routine. His parents make documentaries, and their work has taken the family from one filming location to another. Oliver has grown accustomed to traveling, learning on the road, and seeing places far beyond a traditional classroom.
What he hasn’t learned is how to navigate everyday life with other kids.
Having been homeschooled throughout his childhood, Oliver has barely interacted with people his own age. That suddenly changes when his parents prepare to work at an active volcano site. They enroll their son at a New York boarding school called Horizon Junior High while they complete the assignment.
For Oliver, attending school for the first time would already be a major adjustment. Horizon gives him considerably more to process.
After his parents leave, Oliver discovers the truth. Horizon is a high-security academy where talented young criminals are trained in the techniques they’ll need to become masters of their respective specialties and eventually participate in elaborate heists.
The students around Oliver already seem prepared for this unusual education.
Oliver definitely is not.
He has no experience opening locks, breaking into safes, hacking computers, or hotwiring vehicles. Even making friends feels like unexplored territory. With Horizon’s brutal eliminations placing additional pressure on its students, Oliver quickly realizes that finding people he can trust could determine whether he lasts at the school.
The Waywards Bring Their Own Talents to the Crew
Oliver eventually finds those people, and the five students form a crew appropriately named The Waywards.
Jaden, Oliver’s roommate, has mastered lock-picking. He’s also deaf, and Oliver communicates with him through American Sign Language. Their ability to communicate gives Oliver an early connection at Horizon while opening the door to a meaningful friendship.
Lilly is the crew’s technology specialist. Intelligence runs strongly in her family, with parents who are regarded as evil geniuses. Her technological abilities make her an obvious asset when the group encounters challenges requiring more than physical skills.
Sonja takes responsibility for disguise. Her particular method is wonderfully unconventional because she disguises herself as inanimate objects. Outside those disguises, her rapid-fire personality ensures she’s unlikely to disappear into the background.
Mo completes the group as a gifted mechanic and designated getaway driver. There’s one amusing obstacle standing between him and that job description: he has never actually driven a car.
Then there’s Oliver.
Everyone around him appears to have a specialty that can be written beside their name. Oliver enters the crew without an obvious criminal talent, leaving him to determine what he contributes when the pressure rises.
That search for purpose adds another dimension to the fun of the heist-school concept. Oliver has spent years seeing the world, communicating across different environments, and adapting to constant movement. Horizon may finally reveal how those experiences have shaped him.
Why Matt Wants Young Readers Turning Pages
The Waywards represents a new creative chapter for Matt, who has spent approximately eight years writing comic books before moving into middle-grade fiction.
His interest in this readership comes from personal experience. Middle grade was the period when Matt stopped reading regularly, and he didn’t return to books until late high school. He now hopes to create stories capable of carrying young readers through that stage by making the next page difficult to resist.
The world of Heist Jr. High offers plenty of opportunities for that approach. Secret training, criminal specialties, school eliminations, friendships, humor, and grand heists can all become part of Oliver’s education as the series develops.
There’s also something universally recognizable underneath the unusual premise. Oliver wants to belong. He’s surrounded by talented peers and trying to understand his own value within the group, an experience many young readers can recognize even without attending a school for aspiring criminals.
About Author Matt Jordan-Pummell
Originally from New York, Matt now calls Portland, Oregon home. He lives there with his wife Cam, their children Reed and Elliot, their dog Moose, and two cats named Bennie and Jet.
Matt works in Sales Operations at On-Running and is also Co-founder of the Desklands. A self-described geek, he enjoys diving deeply into niche passions and creative pursuits. His writing reflects his desire to capture that sense of curiosity and wonder for readers.
Anyone who pre-orders Heist Jr. High can email a photograph of the purchase receipt and a mailing address to thedesklands@gmail.com to receive a signed thank-you card from Matt.
School Is About to Get Criminally Interesting
With Oliver discovering Horizon alongside the reader, Heist Jr. High: The Waywards has an accessible doorway into its imaginative world.
October 1 will mark the beginning of Oliver’s unusual education and Matt’s new middle-grade series. The locks, disguises, technology, getaway plans, and friendships are ready. The Waywards simply have to figure out how to become a crew.
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