Frindle

Whenever I shop for books, I tend to browse by author, especially when I buy for A. She tends to have phases in which she reads all that she can lay her hands on by the flavour of the season.

During the last book sale I went to, there was a buy 2 get 3rd free deal. The books were random, not part of a series or anything. I found the children's section particularly interesting. I picked up about 9 books, for the cost of 6 books. They were all by different writers, and I had never heard of most of them.

I was not sure how they would be received by A, so I decided to read them myself before handing them over to her. They were quick reads, and I had soon finished the 1st. It had proved to be un-put-downable, and I was enchanted by it. There was not time that day to read the others, so I quickly browsed through them. They seemed very interesting.

Here is the 1st one I read- FRINDLE written by Andrew Clements. Illustrations: Brian Selznick. Published by Simon & Schuster.
Ages:8-12 yrs.

Nicholas (Nick) Allen is your regular tween in the fifth grade at Lincoln Elementary school. He is a bright child, with plenty of original ideas, and with never at a loss for words. He could have been called a troublemaker in a more conservative era, prone as he was to stirring up his classmates to get down to some mischief. He had had easygoing teachers until he reached the fifth grade and encountered Mrs. Granger.

Now Mrs. Granger was a strict disciplinarian, the no nonsense sort, with a fondness for dictionaries,  "Look it up!" was one of  her favourite phrases.

One day, Mrs Granger had said that it is we, people who decide what to call a thing by some word. Which is how most words originated and evolved. "If all of us decided to call a dog something else, that would become the word for it. We decide what goes in that book."

This gave Nick an idea. He got his friends together, and told them that from that day on, they would all call a pen a 'frindle'. Every time they spoke of a pen, between themselves, at home, in class, even in a shop while buying a pen, they were to call it a frindle. Until one day, the shopowner too called it a frindle. Soon word spread and all children at school began to call it a frindle.

Mrs. Granger fought against this onslaught on her beloved dictionary till she stood against the whole school. Whole hordes of students were being made to stay back after school and write lines with...you guessed it-frindles. The matter escalated until one day there appeared a story in the local newspaper, then the national newspapers, and then on the CBS evening news. Through it all, Nick and Mrs. Granger stuck to their positions and would not back off. An enterpreneur made millions of 'frindles' with the name written on them, patented it and Nick had a bank account opened in his name with millions of dollars pouring in as his percentage from the sale of these frindles.

One day, Mrs. Granger called him and showed him a sealed envelope with a letter inside it. She asked him to write his name, address, and the date on it in his handwriting. She told him that the battle was far from over, and that she would give him the letter when it finally was.

What happens further in the book is for the reader to find out. What is the issue at hand? Why is Mrs. Granger so dead set against Nick? What does the letter inside the envelope say? And what happens to Nick's word, FRINDLE? Wouldn't you like to know?

It is a wonderful  child sized book about the student-teacher relationship and the commitment of a good teacher to educating a worthy student, not just teaching him/her. 

Edited to add: Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Again ETA: This review won the best book-review prize in a contest by Crossword Bookstores.