I know I am late to extol the virtues of this one (10 years too late) but Frindle by Andrew Clements is a gem of a book. It is about a boy who has ideas. One day, pretty much to irritate a dogmatic teacher, he comes up with the idea of replacing the word, pen, with the word, frindle. Hi-jinks ensues.
My two eldest just loved the book. The whole notion that words come from somewhere and that their value was in how people understood their meaning was a great lesson. I might even be able to explain to them one day how it is that a piece of paper can be worth something. For now, we concentrated on the words. I even left them with a lesson from Shakespeare who is credited with introducing countless words into the English language including countless. It was an olympian effort; well at least after he invented the word olympian.
It has sold over 2 million copies but is unknown and seemingly unavailable here in Australia.
My two eldest just loved the book. The whole notion that words come from somewhere and that their value was in how people understood their meaning was a great lesson. I might even be able to explain to them one day how it is that a piece of paper can be worth something. For now, we concentrated on the words. I even left them with a lesson from Shakespeare who is credited with introducing countless words into the English language including countless. It was an olympian effort; well at least after he invented the word olympian.
It has sold over 2 million copies but is unknown and seemingly unavailable here in Australia.
