Frindle by Andrew Clements was a breezy read. It had all the elements of an ideal, albeit unrealistic young hero’s life – popularity, brains, sense of humor, respectable lovable parents, money… What young adult wouldn’t want to have all that? As a matter of fact, what adult wouldn’t?

Nick Allen is a student known for coming up with ways to antagonize a teacher without really being a troublemaker. He’s just a nice boy trying to make school a little easier and more fun. One tactic he uses is what he calls the “perfect-thought-grenade,” which is a guaranteed time waster. A question that is asked right at the end of the class before a teacher has announced the homework and that effectively side tracks the teacher until the end of class.

This tactic has worked on every teacher, until he tries it on the Language Arts teacher – the fifth grade teacher with a reputation for rigid classroom rules and for being generally impossible. This action instead gets him an extra assignment. He must give an oral report on where words in the dictionary originate. He discovers that words are words, because people decided they are words.

He tests this fact out by calling a pen, a frindle. He gets his friends to make a pact about only using this word and not the word pen from that day forward. The Language Arts teacher is disgruntled by this turn of events and outlaws the word, only increasing its popularity. She believes that the word pen has a history, and that Nick cannot simply change the name… or can he?

The book has a fairly simple plot, straightforward but still an enjoyable read for adults as well as children. It is not one of the best books out there but is a solid reading choice.

Kate

Frindle by Andrew Clements
(c) 1996, Atheneum
Publisher Reading Level: 9-12
ISBN: 0-689-81876-9
106 Pages
illustrated by Brian Selznick