Is Nick Allen a troublemaker?

He really just likes to liven things up at school - and he’s always had plenty of great ideas. When
Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he’s got the
inspiration for his best plan ever…the frindle. Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not
call it a frindle? Things begin innocently enough as Nick gets his friends to use the new word.
Then other people in town start saying frindle. Soon the school is in an uproar, and Nick has
become a local hero. His teacher wants Nick to put an end to all this nonsense, but the funny
thing is frindle doesn’t belong to Nick anymore. The new word is spreading across the country,
and there’s nothing Nick can do to stop it.

A secret world of their own

Jess Aarons’ greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in the fth grade. He’s been practicing
all summer and can’t wait to see his classmates’ faces when he beats them all. But on the rst
day of school, a new girl boldly crosses over to the boys’ side of the playground and outruns
everyone. That’s not a very promising beginning for a new friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke
become inseparable. Leslie has imagination. Together, she and Jess create Terabithia, a magical
kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations
set the only limits. Then one morning, a terrible tragedy occurs. Only when Jess is able to come
to grips with this tragedy does he nally understand the strength and courage Leslie has given
him.
 This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches.
Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living
creatures on earth. There’s nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of
terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma’s stories - but
nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face to face with The Grand High Witch herself!

A li le magic can take you a long way.

When James accidentally drops some magic crystals by the old peach tree, strange things start
to happen. The peach at the top of the tree begins to grow, and before long it’s as big as a
house. Then James discovers a secret entrance way into the fruit, and when he crawls inside, he
meets a bunch of oversized friends - Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybug, and more. After years
of feeling like an outsider in his aunts’ house, James has nally found a place where he belongs.
With a snip of the stem, the peach starts rolling away, and the adventure begins!
 Nobody outfoxes Fantastic Mr. Fox!
Someone’s been stealing from the three meanest farmers around, and they know the identity of
the thief - it’s Fantastic Mr. Fox! Working alone, they could never catch him, but now fat
Boggis, squat Bunce, and skinny Bean have joined forces, and they have Mr. Fox and his family
surrounded. What they don’t know is that they’re not dealing with just any fox - Mr. Fox
would rather die than surrender. Only the most fantastic plan can save him now.
 Excerpt from Frindle
If you asked the kids and the teachers at Lincoln Elementary School to make three lists - all the
really bad kids, all the really smart kids, and all the really good kids - Nick Allen would not be
on any of them. Nick deserved a list all his own, and everyone knew it.
Was Nick a troublemaker? Hard to say. One thing’s for sure: Nick Allen had plenty of
ideas, and he knew what to do with them. One time in third grade Nick decided to turn Miss
Deaver’s room into a tropical island. What kid in New Hampshire isn’t ready for a little
summer in February? So rst he got everyone to make small palm trees out of green and brown
construction paper and tape them onto the corners of each desk. Miss Deaver had only been a
teacher for about six months, and she was delighted. “That’s so cute!”
The next day all the girls wore paper owers in their hair and all the boys wore
sunglasses and beach hats. Miss Deaver clapped her hands and said, “It’s so colorful!”
The day after that Nick turned the classroom thermostat up to about ninety degrees
with a little screwdriver he had brought from home. All the kids changed into shorts and
T-shirts with no shoes. And when Miss Deaver left the room for a minute, Nick spread about
ten cups of ne white sand all over the classroom oor. Miss Deaver was surprised again at just
how creative her students could be.
But the sand got tracked out into the hallway, where Manny the custodian did not
think it was creative at all. And he stomped right down to the o ce.
The principal followed the trail of sand, and when she arrived, Miss Deaver was
teaching the hula to some kids near the front of the room, and a tall, thin, shirtless boy with
chestnut hair was just spiking a Nerf volleyball over a net made from six T-shirts tied together.
The third grade trip to the South Sea ended. Suddenly.
 Excerpt from Bridge to Terabithia

Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity. Good. His dad had the
pickup going. He could get up now. Jess slid out of bed and into his overalls. He didn’t worry
about a shirt because once he began running he would be hot as popping grease even if the
morning air was chill, or shoes because the bottoms of his feet were by now as tough as his
worn-out sneakers.
“Where are you going, Jess?” May Belle lifted herself up sleepily from the double bed
where she and Joyce Ann slept.
“Sh.” He warned. The walls were thin. Momma would be mad as ies in a fruit jar if
they woke her up this time of day.
He patted May Belle’s hair and yanked the twisted sheet up to her small chin. “Just over
the cow eld,” he whispered. May Belle smiled and snuggled down under the sheet.
“Gonna run?”
“Maybe.”
Of course he was going to run. He had gotten up early every day all summer to run. He
gured if he worked at it - and Lord, had he worked - he could be the fastest runner in the fth
grade when school opened up. He had to be the fastest - not one of the fastest or next to the
fastest, but the fastest. The very best.
 Excerpt from The Witches
In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black coats, and they ride on
broomsticks.
But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.
The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen
very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.
REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women.
They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.
That is why they are so hard to catch.
A REAL WITCH hates children with a red-hot sizzling hatred that is more sizzling and
red-hot than any hatred you could possibly imagine.
A REAL WITCH spends all her time plotting to get rid of the children in her
particular territory. Her passion is to do away with them, one by one. It is all she thinks about
all day long. Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a
businessman or driving around in a fancy car (and she could be doing any of these things), her
mind will always be plotting and scheming and churning and burning and whizzing and
phizzing with murderous bloodthirsty thoughts.
 Excerpt from James and e Giant Peach
Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life. He lived peacefully with his
mother and father in a beautiful house beside the sea. There were always plenty of other
children for him to play with, and there was a sandy beach for him to run about on, and the
ocean to paddle in. It was the perfect life for a small boy.
Then, one day, James’s mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and
there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind
you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the
London Zoo.
Now this, as you can well imagine, was a rather nasty experience for two such gentle
parents. But in the long run it was far nastier for James than it was for them. Their troubles
were gone in a ji y. They were dead and gone in thirty- ve seconds at. Poor James, on the
other hand, was still very much alive, and all at once he found himself alone and frightened in a
vast unfriendly world. The lovely house by the seaside had to be sold immediately, and the little
boy, carrying nothing but a small suitcase containing a pair of pyjamas and a toothbrush, was
sent away to live with his two aunts.
 Excerpt from Fantastic Mr. Fox

Down in the valley there were three farms. The owners of these farms had done well. They
were rich men. They were also nasty men. All three of them were about as nasty and mean as
any men you could meet. Their names were Farmer Boggis, Farmer Bunce and Farmer Bean.
Boggis was a chicken farmer. He kept thousands of chickens. He was enormously fat.
This was because he ate three boiled chickens smothered with dumplings every day for
breakfast, lunch, and supper.
Bunce was a duck-and-goose farmer. He kept thousands of ducks and geese. He was a
kind of pot-bellied dwarf, He was so short that his chin would have been under water in the
shallow end of any swimming pool in the world. His food was doughnuts and goose livers. He
mashed the livers into a disgusting paste and then stu ed the paste into the doughnuts. This
diet gave him a tummy ache and a beastly temper.
Bean was a turkey-and-apple farmer. He kept thousands of turkeys in an orchard full of
apple trees. He never ate any food at all. Instead, he drank gallons of strong cider which he
made from the apples in his orchard. He was as thin as a pencil and the cleverest of them all.
Boggis and Bunce and Bean
One fat, one short, one lean
These horrible crooks
So different in looks
Were nonetheless equally mean
That is what the children round about used to sing when they saw them.