Author: Clements, Andrew
May 29, 1949 - Nov. 28, 2019
Books
The book tells the story of a school student, Jack Rankin, whose father is the janitor of his school. Jack is made fun of by his friends for this, and he hates his father because of it. Lashing out, he puts a massive quantity of bubble gum up under his desk so that his father will have to clean it off. Unfortunately, he is caught and ends up having to clean it up himself under the supervision of his father janitor. During this, he learns that it's very hard work to be a janitor, and learns of his father's dark past. He and his father become friends. As the book closes, a student shouts "You gonna be a janitor when you grow up too?!" and Jack says "Yes," and smiles up at his father's face, and says, "yes I do."
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.