Frindle
Encyclopedia
Frindle is a 1996 children's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 Andrew Clements
Andrew Clements
Andrew Clements is an American author of children's books. Clements grew up in Camden, New Jersey and Springfield, Illinois, United States,. As a child, he enjoyed summers at a lakeside cabin in Maine where he spent his days swimming and fishing and his evenings reading books...

 and illustrated
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 by Brian Selznick
Brian Selznick
Brian Selznick is a Caldecott-winning American author and illustrator of children's books.-Life and career:Selznick was born in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey...

.

Frindle is Clements's first novel. All his previous works had been picture book
Picture book
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...

s. The book has received more than 35 awards and honors, including the 1997 Christopher Award
Christopher Award
The Christopher Award is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, motion pictures and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit"...

, the Georgia Children's Book Award, the Sasquatch Children's Book Award, the Zyakafoo Children's Book Award, the Rhode Island Children's Book Award, and the Year 1999 Young Hoosier Book Award.

Clements describes the idea as having come to him in the form of the thought, "What would happen if a kid started using a new word, and other kids really liked it, but his teacher didn't?"

Plot

At the start of fifth grade, Nicholas "Nick" Allen is unhappy because his English teacher is the much-disliked Mrs. Granger. One day, to stall for time in class, Nick decides to question why every word means what they do. After hearing Mrs. Granger's explanation, and having to write an essay about it for homework, he creates a new name for the pen: "frindle".

Soon, every child in school is using the word, and it gains national attention. Mrs. Granger dislikes this new word because she thinks it is not respectful to the word pen, which has a long history. She makes children stay after school and write lines for saying the word "frindle", but this proves to be a problem, as almost every pupil has to stay after school. Parents complain, and the bus drivers that have to work overtime are also unhappy.

The principal decides to visit Nick's house to end the use of the word, but the situation is out of Nick's hands now, and the word's usage cannot be controlled.

The epilogue shows Nick as an adult in his own house. He becomes very rich from the fund of his dad's longtime friend, and Mrs. Granger sends him a new copy of the Dictionary, recently updated to include new words, including "Frindle". He sends back a present, a gold pen with Mrs. Granger's name on it saying, "This object belongs to Loreli Granger and she may call it any name she chooses to."
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