Extra Credit

Extra Credit

by Andrew Clements (2009)

Pen pals across international boundaries, a Midwestern girl not doing well in school and an Afghani boy excelling in his classes. Good read aloud with lots of ideas for research projects, letter writing, social studies, and of course pen pals.

Things Hoped For

Things Hoped For

by Andrew Clements (2006)

meh. Liked a big part of the book, might have liked the other part of the book if it wasn't so rudely crammed in with the better part.  This is the story of an author that tells a cool story then writes another book and thinks no one will read it unless it tells that same story over again.  Actually it's an interesting story of a girl worrying/studying/practicing to get into a great music school and her aging (then missing) grandfather.  It's about dreams, hard work, sacrifice, family.  It shouldn't be about a creepy invisible English voyeur, but that gets shoved into the book and takes away from the power of the real story's ending.  I'm told creepy spy Brit is part of the next book, but he certainly didn't fit in here.

I would still recommend this book -- music/jazz, Yeats and Wordsworth, New York, higher learning, and a thought-provoking solution that can be food for great discussion/debate.

Things Not Seen

Things Not Seen

by Andrew Clements (2002)

Boy wakes up invisible.  Boy does not use invisibility to play pranks or visit the girls' locker room.  Boy meets girl. Boy and girl work together to solve his failure to be visible.  Boy's parents almost go to jail for losing son. Boy learns to appreciate life and the ability to wear clothes.

Frindle

Frindle

Andrew Clements (1996)

A smart-aleck kid defies authority and causes chaos at an elementary school... oh, wait, a creative student leads his classmates in thinking outside the box and expressing their inventive talents.