Frindle

 

Book: Frindle 

Author: Andrew Clements 

Illustrator: Brian Selznick 

Genre: Realistic Fiction 

Awards: Bluebonnet 

Age Group: 3-7 

Summary: 

Nick Allen couldn't really be considered apart of the bad, smart, or good kids. He has a whole lot of ideas and is apart of whole other category. Nick is about to enter fifth grade in which he has Mrs. Granger, a language arts teacher who is very big with definitions and dictionaries, Nick being expected to have access to one of her preferred dictionaries, something he is not looking forward to. A couple weeks in, Nick plans on asking his "teacher-stopper", a question made to distract teachers and stop them from giving homework. Unfortunately, this backfires and Nick feels embarrassed and small. With another assignment, he tries to prolong his presentation but even with 8 minutes left in class, Mrs. Granger still manages to squeeze in a whole lesson. Thinking back to what Mrs. Granger said about words and then comes up with a plan. He and a group of friends decide to never say the word pen again and instead calls it frindle. It gets to the point that the whole school starts using the word and Mrs. Granger threatens detention for anyone who uses the word frindle. Parents become upset and the story eventually reaches the front page of the newspapers. It becomes a big thing and ten years later, Mrs. Granger sends him a dictionary congratulating Nick since frindle become a real word. 

Evaluation and Comments: 

Frindle was a really cool book about how a fifth grader used what he learned in class to make a brand new word, a word that made it to the dictionary! While it was first started to fight back against a teacher, we as the readers see how it started to grow and influence everyone around. 

This book is great for younger students because it gives the message that words have power and if we try hard enough, one simple action can have such a grand impact on the world around us. When reading this, a fun activity you can do is have students do is create their own words and then try to use it throughout the day. 

In conclusion, Frindle has my seal of approval! 🥇😄