Wizard Heir by Cinda Williams Chima

A sixteen year old orphan wizard without a teacher finds himself at a school for troubled teens (and teen wizards). Sounds a touch familiar doesn't it? Harry Potter-ish perhaps? Well, the premise is sort of the same. Seph McCauley has no one to train him, the only parent he ever knew (his foster mother) has died and strange things keep happening around him. His magical abilities are growing out of control from the first. When one of his teenage friends dies after a discharge of magic, Seph's guardians, a law firm places him at the Havens, a school for wayward boys, some of whom are "weir" and some "anaweir." Weir means magical and anaweir means muggle, oops, non-magical.
Like Harry Potter, Seph faces more challenges while he is at school, but unlike Harry, Seph has landed in a nest of vipers. Tortured from the onset of school, Seph makes his plans to escape, makes a new friend and loses an ally. But the story really begins when he is rescued from the school by his legal guardian, who just happens to be an enchanter. The bad guys don't give up the chase, however, and soon Seph is hiding in plain sight in Trinity, Ohio, with a cool cast of weir friends.
While the premise is very familiar, the language of the book is written more for teens than for children. Though some characters in the book are killed, it is not always as simple as it seems. "Chima is a talented storyteller. She keeps her large cast of sorcerers, seers, enchanters, warriors and wizards from becoming fuzzy, and executes no cheap magical moves - although a certain "unnoticeable charm" smacks of another child wizard's invisibility cloak." 1

1 Welch, Rollie. "Author's good vs. evil sequel is a sterling heir to the original" The Plain Dealer. Sunday, May 13, 2007. Last accessed on May 15, 2007 at http://www.cleveland.com/bookreviews/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/117895877437400.xml&coll=2.