Landry News

From the Editor's DeskA Question of FairnessThere has been no teaching so far this year in Mr. Larson's classroom. There has been learning, but there has been no teaching. There is a teacher in the classroom, but he does not teach.Cara Landry is a budding journalist. When she posts a scathing editorial about her burned-out teacher on the bulletin board one afternoon, everything changes. Prodded into action for the first time in years, Mr. Larson challenges his fifth-grade students to create a real newspaper. SoonThe Landry Newsgets more attention than either Cara or her teacher bargained for, as the principal uses the paper to try to get Mr. Larson fired. While the whole town is swept up in a dramatic debate overThe Landry Newsand the First Amendment, Mr. Larson uses the controversy as raw material for some of the finest teaching of his career. And Cara and her classmates learn the importance of tempering a newspaper's truth with mercy. But will their lessons cost Mr. Larson his job?Written by the author of the immensely popularFrindle,this is a compelling new novel about the collision of a student in need of a teacher with a teacher in need of inspiration.

Andrew Clements is the author of several picture books and the best-selling novel Frindle, which won the Christopher Award and has appeared on more than thirty state award lists. He taught in the public schools near Chicago for seven years before moving east to begin a career in publishing. As a teacher, he knew many students like Cara, "girls and boys who are more engaged than they look, who may have suffered, who feel deeply about things, who have a lot to say, but often spend their whole school careers unnoticed. I also know teachers like Mr. Larson -- men and women who have had to work their way through hard times professionally and personally, and yet have managed to keep on loving, to continue giving....This book is about how we earn our second chances." He is currently working on another novel set in school, this time about a janitor's son. Now a full-time writer, Mr. Clements lives in central Massachusetts with his wife and their four children.