The School Story

The School Story by Andrew Clements

ISBN: 0689851863 paper
196 pp
Simon & Schuster July 2002

Booktalk:

“ Hard day, Mom?”
Eyes still closed, Natalie’s book-editor mom smiled and nodded. “The editorial department met all day with the marketing department --- all day. . . the marketing people keep track of what kinds of books kids and parents and teachers are buying. Then they tell us, and we’re supposed to make more books like the ones they think people wil buy. . . Here’s the summary of a six-hour meeting. Ready? . . . (in a bossy tone) People, we need to publish more adventure books, more series books, and more school stories . . . A six-hour meeting for something that could have gone into a one-page memo --- or a three-line email.
Read p. 6 (from “Then Natalie asked . . . “ ) to end p. 7

Natalie Nelson and Zoe Reisman are great, great friends. Natalie is a writer. Like all writers, first she was a reader. Zoe is a talker. Like all talkers, first she was a listener. They would seem to be opposites, right? But you know what they say . . . opposites attract, and in this case, they make a very good team – so when Natalie writes a powerful school story entitled “The Cheater,” Zoe secretly becomes her agent, and with the sometimes unwitting help of their caring English teacher and Zoe’s lawyer father, these two sixth-graders, now a/k/a (also known as) their pseudonyms, or pen names -- author Cassandra Day and her nutty and demanding agent, Zee Zee Reisman -- work to get that manuscript into the right editor’s hands (hmmmmmm, which editor might that be?), and published! Can Natalie and Zoe pull off their masquerade?

RESOURCES:
Biographies of Andrew Clements
http://www.readin.org/authors/author_pages/Clements/andrew_clements.htm
http://www2.scholastic.com/teachers/authorsandbooks/authorstudies/authorhome.jhtml?authorID=2227&collateralID=10917&displayName=Biography

Frindle.com (the official website about the bestselling book)
http://www.frindle.com

Publishers Weekly
http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?publication=publishersweekly

Simon Says Kids Andrew Clements page
http://www.simonsays.com/content/content.cfm?sid=183&pid=353745

Submitted by: Kathy Krasniewicz - Perrot Library - Old Greenwich

Last updated on: 18 September, 2008

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