By: Andrew Clements
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Nora Rowley, a fifth grader, is a genius. However, she is trying to keep it a secret. She just wants to fit in with the rest of her classmates. One day, she gets fed up with competing on test scores and gets an atrocious report card to prove a point. She wants the students to stop ranking each other by grades because that isn’t always accurate.
Nora works with her best friend, Stephen, along with all of his friends, to come up with a plan. Even though they will know most of the answers, they will write in silly, nonsensical responses to the test questions. They want all the students to fail every test given during the week so that even if they are smart, they will all get bad grades. This will show the teachers and the students that grades really don’t matter.
What I liked most about this book is that it shows the pressure that kids feel about grades. Some of us try really hard to do well and some don’t care but we are all judged by what is on our report card. In Nora’s situation, she’s smart enough to get straight A’s but she doesn’t want to show it.
I would recommend this book to anyone who understands what it’s like to be in elementary school and how stressful it can be to worry about grades. It made me realize that maybe grades aren’t everything and you shouldn’t always have to worry about them.
Grade Recommendation
2nd-5th
