her, clever Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a chain of events that quickly moves
beyond his control.
ISBN 0-689-80669-8
[1. Teacher-student relationships—Fiction. 2. Words, New—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.] I.
Selznick, Brian, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.C59118Fr 1996 95-26671
[Fic]—dc20
* * *
Front Flap
Ages 8-12
Nicholas Allen has plenty of ideas. Who can forget the time he turned his third-grade classroom into a tropical island, or the times he fooled his teacher by chirping like a blackbird? But now Nick’s in fifth grade, and it looks like his days as a troublemaker are over. Everyone knows that Mrs. Granger, the language arts teacher, has X-ray vision, and nobody gets away with anything in her classroom. To make matters worse, she’s also a fanatic about the dictionary, which is hopelessly boring to Nick. But when Nick learns an interesting tidbit about words and where they come from, it inspires his greatest plan yet: to invent a new word. From now on, a pen is no longer a pen—it’s a frindle. It doesn’t take long for frindle to take root, and soon the excitement spreads well beyond his school and town. His parents and Mrs. Granger would like Nick to put an end to all this nonsense. But frindle doesn’t belong to Nick anymore. All he can do now is sit back and watch what happens.
* * *
Rear Flap
Andrew Clements is the multifaceted author of the picture book Big Al, the Jake Drake Ready-to-Read series, and three novels about school life, Frindle, The Landry News, and Janitor’s Boy. Frindle won the Christopher Award and has appeared on more than thirty-five state award lists and The Landry News is a New York Times bestseller. Mr. Clements taught in the public schools near Chicago for seven years before moving east to begin a career in publishing. The idea for Frindle grew out of a talk he gave about writing to a group of second graders. He says about this book: “Frindle is … about discovering the true nature of words, language, thought, community, learning. It’s also about the life that surges through the corridors and classrooms every day.” Mr. Clements now writes full-time and lives in central Massachusetts with his wife and their four children.
Brian Selznick is the illustrator of two Andrew Clements novels, The Landry News and The School Story, as well as Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride by Pam Muñoz Ryan. He also wrote and illustrated The Boy of a Thousand Faces and The Houdini Box. He lives in New York City.
Jacket illustration by Brian Selznick
Copyright © 1996 by Simon & Schuster
Jacket design by Anahid Hamparian
Simon & Schuster
Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster, New York
Rear Cover
From this day on
and forever, I will
never use the word
PEN again. Instead,
I will use the word
FRINDLE, and I
will do everything
possible so others
will, too.
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Version Info
v 1.0 HTML
Scanned and proofed 2009-01-14
Changes/corrections to the printed book young man. ” / man.”
Possible errors in printed book opened the storm door plucked the envelope / door, plucked