Frindle by Andrew Clements

Book Review by Mrs. Locke, teacher, Washington, D.C.

It was hard to choose just one book by Andrew Clements, as he is such a wonderful and fun children's book author. I chose Frindle because I just read it this summer so it is fresh in my mind, but also because one of my students read it over the summer and talked about it all the time in our penpal letters. (Yes, I was penpals with my students if they wanted to be). This book is about a boy with a terribly strict teacher, but the boy is always coming up with ways to distract and fool the teacher. The boy decides to prove a point to the teacher and gets the whole class to stop using the word "pen" and instead calling it a "frindle." This annoys the teacher to no end, but the word "frindle" catches on and soon, the whole school is using it and it becomes a big news story. Frindle is a fun read, and appropriate for 2nd through 6th graders.