Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope you all are enjoying your Mama Earth and showing others how much you love Her. In honor of Earth Day, A Week in the Woods celebrates the environment and how everyone of all ages can enjoy nature.
In Week in the Woods, fifth-grader Mark Chelmsley is the new kid in a small town in New Hampshire. His family is rich (like half of a billion dollars) and Mark is basically killing time before he is shuttled off to boarding school. He expects to take it easy and not make any friends in his short stay at Hardy Elementary. What he doesn’t expect is to have any adventures. Mark, who has lived in New York City, Paris, and San Fransisco, has never been in a landscape like New Hampshire before and all the nature around him compels him to explore the hills surrounding his house. All his afternoon adventures not only bring out a passion for nature but also a sense of self. So when he gets invited to A Week in the Woods with all the other fifth graders, he gets ready for some fun-filled nature activities.
Mr. Maxwell, Mark’s fifth grade science teacher has been leading A Week in the Woods for the past 16 years. When Mark shows up, Mr. Maxwell is forced to overcome his distain for rich, un-environmentally friendly snobs and realize that Mark is not a part of that typical stereotype. Of course, there are bumps along the way toward mending that relationship, but in the end, Mr. Maxwell and Mark realize their mutual love of nature and the need to help protect the environment.
As a middle reader (not an easy reader and not quiet young adult liturature), I was impressed by the subtly of the character interactions. Yet it was readable and so the characters and their roles were perfectly clear. It is evident why Clements has been on the best seller lists and writer of multi-million copies. His simplistic style is great for the kid who needs something easier to read while still being quality literature. Week in the Woods an excellent book for kids to read, especially those who enjoy the outdoors and the environment.
Other Andrew Clements Books:
- Lost and Found: Tweve-year-old identical twins Jay and Ray have long resented that everyone treats them as one person, and so they hatch a plot to take advantage of a clearical error at their new school and pretend they are just one.
- The School Story: After twelve-year-old Natalie writes a wonderful novel, her friend Zoe helps her devise a scheme to get it accepted at the publishing house where Natalie’s mother works as an editor.
- Lunch Money: Twelve-year-old Gred, who has always been good at moneymaking projects, is surprise to find himself teaming up with his lifelong rival, Maura, to create a series of comic books to sell at school.
- The Janitor’s Boy: Fifth grader Jack finds himself the target of ridicule at school when it becomes known that his father is one of the janitors, and he turns his anger onto his father.
- Frindle: When he decides to turn his fifth grade teacher’s love of the dictionarly around on her, clever Nick Allen invents a new work and begins a chain of events that quickly moves beyond his control.