The Frindle Files continues the theme of Frindle, a fun study of how language works and how it's possible to change it—and open new possibilities—by inventing new words. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, plays a huge role in the story, both for its advice on clear writing and as an example of what happens when somebody pirates a book and puts it online. The Zen of Python, a handbook for coders, is important to Josh and quoted often. The fact that Elements co-author E.B. White also wrote Charlotte's Web is important to the story. Lots of detail about middle school classes and what's being studied. Also, the importance of internet safety and checking your sources, and a lot of how-to on viral internet campaigns.
Positive Messages
a lot
Simple, clear, careful communication matters. Respect in many forms—being willing to learn from each other and change your mind, honoring the work of writers, practicing critical thinking and safe internet skills. Respecting someone's privacy and keeping their secret even when you think it's really cool and want to tell the world. Realizing that some things, like coding, are very binary/on-off/yes-no, while others are more complex and cannot be understood that way. From illustrator Brian Selznick, a life lesson that nobody likes being told to re-do their work, but often the new improved version is amazing and totally worth it.
Positive Role Models
a lot
Sixth-grader Josh is smart, fond of coding, deeply into the digital world, and impatient with Mr. N's insistence on pen and paper—so he launches a mini-rebellion with unexpected consequences. Classmate Vanessa is a force of nature and right there with him. Mr. N, meanwhile, has a good reason for his teaching ways, and also a big secret from his own middle school days. The resulting battles of words and wits are a learning experience for characters and readers alike. Josh's mom, caught up in the events of Frindle, has fond memories of those days—"It was about all the kids making something happen on our own, making something change"—and supports Josh in his research and adventures. Unseen, but important to the story: author and storyteller E. B. White; an unknown person who pirates a book and gives away bad copies on the internet; Mrs. Granger, middle school teacher in Frindle, whose clever influence lingers. Various teachers help Josh, Vanessa, and their friends navigate research and downloading issues.
Diverse Representations
a little
Strong boy and girl characters. Characters are mostly White. Physical descriptions of characters are almost entirely absent. One of the most important figures, the person who posts a pirated book to the net, is never physically seen or described at all. Teacher surnames reflect a wide range of ethnicities, and a woman teacher is especially helpful with tech issues.
Parents need to know that The Frindle Files, written shortly before author Andrew Clements' death in 2019 and illustrated by Brian Selznick, is a standalone, generation-later sequel to his '90s middle-grade classic Frindle. celebrating smart 6th graders matching wits with wise and wily teachers and learning a lot in the process. Back in the '90s, a kid named Nate, made it a thing to call a pen a "frindle," and it caught on with a whole lot of other kids, so when tech-loving Josh finds a pen with "frindle" emblazoned on the side (a souvenir from his mom's childhood), his curiosity and research give him an edge in his ongoing battle with teacher Mr. N, who insists on homework neatly written in pen on paper. Online research and media savviness play a big role here; so do books The Elements of Style (about writing in English) and The Zen of Python (about writing code for computers). Author E.B. White of Charlotte's Web fame is important to the story, as is the fact that he co-wrote The Elements of Style. Friendship, respect, teamwork, learning from your mistakes and doing better are important themes.
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What's the Story?
THE FRINDLE FILES finds sixth grader Josh Willett chafing at his English teacher Mr. N's demand that all assignments be written neatly in ink on lined paper. Josh is a tech whiz and gets all his homework done on his computer in about 20 minutes so he can get on to what he really wants to do—coding in Python. This pen and paper business is really a pain. So is Mr. N's requirement that everybody have a paperback of The Elements of Style in class. This, says Josh, must not stand—so he finds a digital copy of the book online, shares it with his classmates, and launches a mini-revolution. Which doesn't go quite the way he hoped.
Andrew Clements' posthumous sequel to his lively '90s tale has a new generation of clever middle schoolers matching wits with wily teachers over the best ways to use language and technology. Looking back at the language-morphing adventures of the original, The Frindle Files spins an entertaining tale of determined kids and the teacher trying to stay ahead of them—who's got some unexpected history of his own. Lots of misadventure and hard-won wisdom about what can go wrong on the internet, how to avoid it, how to fix things when they go wrong, what it all has to do with Charlotte's Web, and why that matters. Brian Selznick's plentiful illustrations add a lot of appeal to the characters and story.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about books like The Frindle Files that pick up a beloved story (and maybe its characters) many years later. Do you like this kind of storytelling—and does it make you see the original differently?
What Josh loves about talking to computers is that it's binary—it's either on or off, it works or it doesn't, there's no maybe about it. People are more complicated, and so is talking to them. What do you need to know about someone, and pay attention to, when you're trying to tell them something important?
In The Frindle Files, downloading a free but dodgy book off the internet has fateful consequence. Have you ever taken what you thought was a clever shortcut, only to have it backfire? What happened and what did you do about it?
Josh and his friends work to uncover the mystery of the Frindle. How do their unique strengths contribute to reaching their goals? Does anything get in the way? What can you learn about teamwork from their research and adventures?
Available on:
Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Last updated:
September 4, 2024
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