Frindle
By Andrew Clements
Summary: Nick Allen is known for steering teachers off track in order to get himself and his classmates out of work. That is until he meets his match, Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger responds to his attempt by giving him an extra homework assignment to research the dictionary. This eventually leads to Nick creating a new word for a pen, frindle. This also leads to a lot of chaos. Much to Mrs. Granger's dismay the entire school starts using the word frindle which eventually leads to the use of it throughout the town, country, and world. The battle between Nick and Mrs. Granger finally ends when his word is added to dictionary and he receives a letter from her when he becomes an adult. He discovers she was secretly on his side the entire time but was posing as his adversary to draw more attention to his creativity in inventing his own word.
Clements, A. (2009). Frindle. Chicago, IL: Simon & Schuster.
My Impression: This book is a delightful and easy read. This would be a great addition to any school library. The plot is well developed and easy to follow making this book a great choice for reluctant and lower level readers. Nick Allen is easy to relate to and we can all relate to have a teacher like Mrs. Granger or hearing rumors of teachers like Mrs. Granger. This fun and easy read for reluctant readers and avid readers receives an A.
Professional Reviews:
Booklist (September 1996)
Ten-year-old Nick Allen has a reputation for devising clever, time-wasting schemes guaranteed to distract even the most conscientious teacher. His diversions backfire in Mrs. Granger's fifth-grade class, however, resulting in Nick being assigned an extra report on how new entries are added to the dictionary. Surprisingly, the research provides Nick with his best idea ever, and he decides to coin his own new word. Mrs. Granger has a passion for vocabulary, but Nick's (and soon the rest of the school's) insistence on referring to pens as "frindles" annoys her greatly. The war of words escalates - resulting in after-school punishments, a home visit from the principal, national publicity, economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs, and, eventually, inclusion of frindle in the dictionary. Slightly reminiscent of Avi's Nothing but the Truth (1991), this is a kinder, gentler story in which the two sides eventually come to a private meeting of the minds and the power of language triumphs over both. Sure to be popular with a wide range of readers, this will make a great read-aloud as well.
Library Uses: Create an interactive display using the book cover of Frindle and a brief summary as the central focus point. Have students create their own words they think should be added to a dictionary. Surrounding the book cover, have index cards with the student invented words on the front and the definition on the back. Student can guess what the words means and flip it over to see what it really means.
Speak
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Summary: After, calling the cops to end the first high school party she ever attended, Melinda finds herself friendless and speechless. She loses all her friendships and her relationship with her parents isn't that great either. What no one knows is that she is speechless because of a secret she is holding on to. The reason she called the police at the party is because she was raped. As she struggles through her freshman year with only one friend, she discovers her former best friend is dating the guy that raped her. It is up to her to tell her friend the truth about her boyfriend and mend the relationships that have been broken.
Anderson, L. H. (1999). Speak. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
My Impression: Although this book deals with a very delicate subject, it receives an A+. It grabs your attention and does let go until the last word. It does a great job of painting a picture of what it must be like to hold a secret so big and so serious captive. This book could be used as a great lesson older girls.
Professional Reviews:
Horn Book Magazine (September/October 1999)
Speaking out at the "wrong" time — calling 911 from a teen drinking party — has made Melinda a social outcast; now she barely speaks at all. A conversation with her father about their failed Thanksgiving dinner goes as follows: "Dad: 'It's supposed to be soup.' / Me: / Dad: 'It tasted a bit watery, so I kept adding thickener….' / Me: ." While Melinda's smart and savvy interior narrative slowly reveals the searing pain of that 911 night, it also nails the high-school experience cold — from "The First Ten Lies They Tell You" (number eight: "Your schedule was created with your needs in mind") to cliques and clans and the worst and best in teachers. The book is structurally divided into four marking periods, over which Melinda's grades decline severely and she loses the only friend she has left, a perky new girl she doesn't even like. Melinda's nightmare discloses itself in bits throughout the story: a frightening encounter at school ("I see IT in the hallway…. IT sees me. IT smiles and winks"), an artwork that speaks pain. Melinda aches to tell her story, and well after readers have deduced the sexual assault, we feel her choking on her untold secret. By springtime, while Melinda studies germination in Biology and Hawthorne's symbolism in English, and seeds are becoming "restless" underground, her nightmare pushes itself inexorably to the surface. When her ex-best-friend starts dating the "Beast," Melinda can no longer remain silent. A physical confrontation with her attacker is dramatically charged and not entirely in keeping with the tone of the rest of the novel, but is satisfying nonetheless, as Melinda wields a shard of broken glass and finds her voice at last to scream, "No!" Melinda's distinctive narrative employs imagery that is as unexpected as it is acute: "April is humid…. A warm, moldy washcloth of a month." Though her character is her own and not entirely mute like the protagonist of John Marsden's So Much to Tell You, readers familiar with both books will, be impelled to compare the two girls made silent by a tragic incident. The final words of Marsden's books are echoed in those of Speak, as Melinda prepares to share her experience with a father-figure art teacher: "Me: 'Let me tell you about it.'" An uncannily funny book even as it plumbs the darkness, Speak will hold readers from first word to last.
Adams, L. (1999). Speak [Review of the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson]. Horn Book Magazine, 75(5), 605-606. Retrieved from http://www.hbook.com/
Library Uses: This would be a great book to use in a girls' book club. This would be a great opportunity to hold a mother daughter book club where some serious issues could be discussed in a safe setting.
