Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frindle | 1996 | Andrew Clements | Buy |
| 2 | Frindli, avagy a nagy ötlet | 1996 | Andrew Clements | N/A |
| 3 | The Frindle Files | 2024 | Andrew Clements | Buy |
Frindle came out in 1996 and became one of the best-selling children’s novels of the following two decades. The premise is simple: a fifth-grader named Nick Allen decides to call a pen a frindle instead, just to see what happens. His English teacher, Mrs. Granger, refuses to let it go, and the conflict between them escalates in ways that neither expected. By the end of the book, the word has taken on a life of its own, and the story has quietly become something about language, authority, and what it means when an idea spreads beyond anyone’s control.
Clements once said the story started with a simple question he had been carrying for years: where do words come from? He spent several years working on what began as a picture book before realizing it needed to be a novel. Frindle ended up selling more than eight million copies, winning multiple state children’s choice awards, a Christopher Award, and eventually the Phoenix Award in 2016 for books that failed to win a major prize at the time of publication.
The Frindle Files arrived in August 2024, five years after Clements’ death. He had written the manuscript before he died, and his family and publisher saw it through to publication. The sequel is set in the present day, with a boy named Josh who discovers an old pen labeled frindle and begins investigating where the word came from, and whether his teacher might know more than he is letting on.