School starts this week! I just love the smell of new school supplies and the bright smiles on the students’ faces. We are all ready to make some new memories this school year.

For the past few weeks I have been looking at picture books, but this week I want to share an author that seems to capture the school experience in his many chapter books. The author is Andrew Clements. He was a teacher in the public schools near Chicago for several years before moving his family to New York for a career in publishing and writing. His chapter books are great for readers from the fourth grade and up.

His most popular, and award winning book is Frindle. This is a story about Nick Allen, a fifth grade boy, who has been a class clown in previous school years. But this school year, he may have met his match with his new teacher Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger is a language arts teacher who has been at the middle school longer than anyone can remember and she has a passion for the dictionary. Her battle cry is “Look it up! That’s why we have the dictionary.” She is known for her lengthy weekly vocabulary word tests and does not allow fooling around in her classroom. “When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he’s got the inspiration for his best plan ever”. Mrs. Granger and Nick go head to head all school year long with a very heartwarming conclusion.

Fifth grader Nora Rowley is a genius, but her grades do not reflect it in The Report Card. Nora’s brother and sister are high achievers, but Nora wants to be recognized for her skills as a soccer player rather than as a bright student. She does not want to be singled out for her academic abilities at school, so she secretly takes college-level courses online. Nora’s secret is discovered when the school librarian finds out what websites Nora has been visiting on the school computers. Nora purposely scores low on tests to prove to everyone that test scores do not equal intelligence and other students join in. This book is sure to spark a healthy discussion about the validity of standardized tests.

Lunch Money is a story about an entrepreneurial sixth grade boy named Greg Kenton. Greg notices that his classmates seem to always have extra lunch money and hatches a plan to get it. He decides to create comic books to sell since “school always encourages reading and writing and creativity and individual initiative, right?” The story follows Greg as he faces obstacles with his business and learns what success really is.

In Lost and Found, the sixth grade Grayson identical twins are moving to a new town once again and have to start at a new school. But on the first day of school Ray has to stay home sick and Jay has to start at a new school on his own. To Jay’s surprise the school is only expecting one Grayson, his brother Ray is not on the attendance list. The twins take advantage of this lost information by taking turns attending school as Jay. Through attending school separately, together Jay and Ray learn about being honest, how to be a friend and how to be individuals.

Other books by Andrew Clements in this school series are The Landry News, The Janitor’s Boy, The School Story, A Week in the Woods, The Last Holiday Concert, Room One, and No Talking. These are available at your local library AND probably your school library!

Do you or your family have any favorite books about school? Please share your favorites in the comments.

author photo: andrewclements.net book photos: andrewclements.com