Frindle by Andrew Clements

Frindle was a delightful little book.

I really like children's and young adult books, but I'm also pretty picky about them. Not every children's book is a great book. There are many that are incredibly well-written and clever and appeal to children and adults alike, but for each one of these there are also a at least a dozen that are best left to the fourth graders to read on their own. I have many great books that I remember from my childhood, but I have an increasingly hard time finding new children's books that I want to add to my collection.

Frindle, though, is one that I would put on my bookshelf.

It's short. It took me maybe an hour to read, maybe not even that, but was quite satisfying. It's about coining new words, a subject near and dear to my heart. The word being coined is frindle, a word that NIck, the main character, attempts to spread as a replacement for the word pen. The book is at its heart the kind of elementary school tale I remember from my own childhood. It's funny and earnest and never over the top. The characters are believable and likable, even Nick's nemesis, his language arts teacher, Mrs. Granger. And it has a touch of linguistics, but doesn't overtly force the educational aspect on its readers. It's fun and short and well-deserving of the praise it's received.

Don't let the brevity of this post fool you. In fact, I think the strength of this book is that this is really all that needs to be said. I recommend it.