Frindle

Andrew Clements' FRINDLE is the story of a young boy who engages his teacher in a battle of wills about words. Nick Allen tries to find clever ways to use up class time and avoid doing school work. In the past, he has distracted teachers from their lesson plans by asking questions that require long explanations. However, after he asks Mrs. Granger how words get into the dictionary, he's dismayed to be given extra homework: an essay on the history of the dictionary and the origin of words, which he will have to read out loud in class. Nick writes a report that's cleverly designed, again, to take up class time. When Mrs. Granger tells him his time is up, he pushes back again by saying that though he learned a lot about dictionaries from his research, he still doesn't understand where words come from. Who decides that a dog is called a "dog," for example? "You do," answers his teacher, and this inspires Nick to invent a new word for a familiar object- -- an idea that will disrupt school life far more than even Nick can imagine.