Add Frindle to your Middle Reader's summer reading list!

I read this book with my 7 year old last week. He wanted to read a book with me, but didn't want me to read it aloud - he's too big for that, I guess. So, he and I lay in bed reading quietly to ourselves. Then, we would talk about each section we had just read. Often, we would read three or four chapters in a session, because neither one of us wanted to put the book down!

Nick Allen is a smart kid. He has a knack for asking the right questions to get a teacher off topic for the last 15 minutes of class, in order to distract her from assigning homework. Mrs. Granger isn't your average teacher and Nick's trick backfires, and he is assigned to do a research project on what makes a word a word. How do words come to be in the dictionary? Nick comes up with his greatest idea yet - Frindle. Frindle is another name for a pen, according to fifth-grade student, Nick Allen! A word has meaning because you say so, at least that's what his teacher, Mrs. Granger said. Nick decides to test her theory, and her, by getting all the students in the school to stop using the word "pen" and start using the word "frindle." Nick's experiment erupts into something bigger than neither he nor Mrs. Granger could ever have imagined.

I had so much fun reading this book, and it sparked some wonderful discussions with my son, not only about words and how they come to be in the dictionary, but about the power of imagination and creativity.

I highly recommend Frindle. It's a thought provoking story that's age-appropriate and NOT about gross bodily functions. My son and I are looking forward to our next book by Andrew Clements.