Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Old-school meets tech in long-awaited sequel by late author.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
THE FRINDLE FILES finds sixth grader Josh Willett chafing at his English teacher Mr. N's demand that all assignments be written neatly in ink on lined paper. Josh is a tech whiz and gets all his homework done on his computer in about 20 minutes so that he can get on to what he really wants to do: coding in Python. This pen-and-paper business is really a pain. So is Mr. N's requirement that everybody have a paperback of The Elements of Style in class. This, says Josh, must not stand—so he finds a digital copy of the book online, shares it with his classmates, and launches a mini-revolution. Which doesn't go quite the way he hoped.
Is It Any Good?
Andrew Clements' posthumous sequel to his lively '90s tale has a new generation of clever middle schoolers matching wits with wily teachers over the best ways to use language and technology. Looking back at the language-morphing adventures of the original, The Frindle Files spins an entertaining tale of determined kids and the teacher trying to stay ahead of them—a teacher who's got some unexpected history of his own. Lots of misadventure and hard-won wisdom about what can go wrong on the internet, how to avoid it, how to fix things when they go wrong, what it all has to do with Charlotte's Web, and why that matters. Brian Selznick's plentiful illustrations add a lot of appeal to the characters and story.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about books like The Frindle Files that pick up a beloved story (and maybe its characters) many years later. Do you like this kind of storytelling—and does it make you see the original differently?
What Josh loves about talking to computers is that it's binary—it's either on or off, it works or it doesn't, there's no maybe about it. People are more complicated, and so is talking to them. What do you need to know about someone, and pay attention to, when you're trying to tell them something important?
In The Frindle Files, downloading a free but dodgy book off the internet has fateful consequences. Have you ever taken what you thought was a clever shortcut, only to have it backfire? What happened, and what did you do about it?
Josh and his friends work to uncover the mystery of the Frindle. How do their unique strengths contribute to reaching their goals? Does anything get in the way? What can you learn about teamwork from their research and adventures?
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Brian Selznick
- Genre : Humor
- Topics : Activism , Friendship , School ( Middle School )
- Character Strengths : Empathy , Gratitude , Teamwork
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Random House
- Publication date : August 27, 2024
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
- Number of pages : 224
- Available on : Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 18, 2025
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