Clements, Andrew. The School Story. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2001.

Audience: 8-12 year olds or grades 5 though 8.


Natalie Nelson is a sixth grader who has written a book. With the help of her best friend, Zoe, and teacher, Ms. Clayton, the three work to have the book published by submitting the manuscript to the same publishing house for which Natailie's mom works.

I found the book to be an interesting overview of the publishing industry. I also found the two students to be extremely creative and resourceful in how they manipulated the system, wresting the book away from the evil Letha in order to allow Natalie's mom to work on the project. Too bad real authors aren't able to manipulate the path their manuscripts will take through the publishing industry.

While I enjoyed reading the book because it offered me a glimpse into the foibles of the publishing industry (slush piles, editors with so many manuscripts to read and so little time, competition among editors for the next perfect book), I did find the book a little unrealistic. I'm not familiar with many sixth graders who would be either mature enough or sophisticated enough to pull off an accurate portrayal of adults. Of course, maybe that's part of the magic of the book.

Also, I'm not very familiar with children who have been raised in the city. Maybe city kids mature faster than their more rural cousins. I also found it a bit unrealistic that the adults who did finally become involved did so. This was especially true in the case of the teacher. Liability issues seem to loom on every horizon and would seem to be a deterrent to helping the girls in this situation. Clements does a good job of answering the objections, though. For example, the teacher uses her money, not the girls' money and Zoe's father is a lawyer who can be on the look out for legal potholes.

It's interesting that all three books (Bloomability, The Wedding Planner's Daughter, and The School Story) each contain some "text" that is separate from the actual storyline. In Bloomability, it's the little blocks that contain Dinnie's dreams. In The Wedding Planner's Daughter, it’s the quotes that begin each chapter heading and that are sprinkled throughout the text. In The School Story, it's the excerpts from Natalie's book and the example of the forms that the girls completed for the office services. In each book, these items serve as both a graphic element to break up the text, and as a story element, adding another level to the storyline. (This could be where the seed was planted to add a journal component to my manuscript.)

Griswold's model, the Three Lives of the Child-Hero, can be used to further analyze the structure of The School Story.

In Natalie Nelson's first life, she is also an orphan in that her father is deceased and her mother seems to be tied up with work, bringing manuscripts home to read. The two characters have an amicable relationship, but Natalie still feels the loss of her father profoundly.

Hanna worried about Natalie. Ever since she lost her dad, Natalie had kept much more to herself. She seemed happy enough, and she didn't seem to need to talk about not having a dad, but maybe that was a problem. Hannah was glad that Fred made the effort to be part of the family, and she knew that Natalie loved him. But having an uncle who loved you wasn't the same. Nothing could ever be the same. (Clement, p. 111)

The Nelson's don't live in abject poverty but the pinch of the finances is there:

But an afternoon cab ride to her office building near Rockefeller Center took much longer, and the fare was almost twice as much. Hannah Nelson just couldn't afford to pay that much for transportation every single school day. (Clements, p. 18)

Hannah Nelson is the primary breadwinner in the family and feels the stress of that responsibility daily. The negligence isn't one that is detrimental to Natalie's physical health. Instead it is an emotional negligence in that Natalie's mother is almost totally consumed by her job and by trying to please a demanding boss.

Like Willa in the Wedding Planner's Daughter, Natalie remembers the vanished happy times when her father was still alive. This comes across in the second chapter when we learn how Natalie became an avid reader and, in particular, how her father contributed to that love: "But not with dad. He was loud and reckless. He made funny voices for all the firemen and ducks and princesses." (Clement, p. 9)

At the end of the chapter, we see how Natalie remains in contact with the memory of her father: "She sat in her dad's old red desk chair and used his old Macintosh computer. Not quite a cabin or an attic, but close enough--and it was as close as Natalie could get to her dad." (Clement, p. 12)

The School Story veers from Griswold's model in several places. We really don't get a sense of any violation of a marriage prohibition by Natalie's parents. There isn't an actual journey in The School Story either unless you factor in the amount of time that Natalie and her mother spend riding the bus. Especially since this act of riding the bus alone illustrates the early maturation process for Natalie.

Another area that doesn't quite fit the story is the category of destination: big house & the great outdoors. One could consider the large office building where Hannah Nelson works as the "Big House," a place where Natalie isn't entirely welcome, but it's a part of her typical after-school routine. The "great outdoors" comes at the end of the book when Natalie and Hannah join Uncle Fred on vacation to the Grand Canyon.

Another part of Griswold's model that doesn't quite fit is the adoption by a second family. Of course, the girls decide to take on or "adopt" adult personas in the form of Zee Zee Reisman and Cassandra Day, which fulfills this requirement. The inclusion of Uncle Fred, the brother of Natalie's father, as an adult relative who can provide guidance to Natalie could also be considered an adoption of sorts.

Using the example of the children adopting adult personas, we can then say that the surrogate parents are of a different social rank, i.e. adults with more privileges and freedom than children typically have. Uncle Fred would also be of a different social rank, in that he owns his own business and frequently invites Natalie and her mother to join him on vacations during the summer.

The same-sex antagonist is Letha Springfield, editor-in-chief of Shipley Junior Books. Even though the name book says that the name has Greek origins and means ladylike (Stafford, p. 444), this reader found it quite the coincidence that the name looks like the root of the word "lethal," which comes from the Latin "lethalis," meaning death. (Mish, p. 713) Letha works against both Hannah and Natalie by taking over the editing of the manuscript. By pushing Hannah to complete jobs on short deadlines and thus forcing her to work at home in the evenings and on the weekends, Letha also contributes to the symbolic "orphaning" of Natalie.

The opposite-sex helpers are easy to identify: Robert Reisman, Zoe's father; indirectly Tom Morton, publisher; and Uncle Fred. The outsiders who serve as helpers are Ms. Clayton, Zoe, and indirectly Kelley Collins, executive assistant to Tom Morton.

The triumph over the antagonist occurs when the manuscript is sent to the publisher, who reads it at the prompting of his executive assistant, and pulls Letha off the project in order to allow Hannah to handle it as was requested in the cover letter.

The next four categories of Griswold's model blend together in The School Story. Natalie emerges as the Savior, issues of identity are resolved, and the recognition ceremony all occur when Natalie arrives at Shipley Junior Books for the party being held to meet Cassandra Day. In some ways, Zoe is more the Savior, because she masterminded the whole publishing project. She was able to get the news crew there, and she was willing to take the chances necessary to protect Natalie's manuscript from Letha.

The accommodation of two lives occurs when Natalie and Hannah talk about the book on their way home after the party:

Hannah cleared her throat. "You know, I almost didn't want you to read this book by Cassandra Day--because of the parts about Angela and her father. I thought those sections might be too hard on you."

Natalie nodded. "Those parts were hard to write. But I wanted to remember Daddy. I wanted to feel what it would be like if he was still here. I don't want to forget about him, not ever."

"Of course not. You won't. He'd be so proud of you right now." (Clement, p. 189)

Finally, the mother and daughter can freely talk about husband and father without the sorrow of death getting in the way. Natalie's book has served as a cathartic element that allowed her to express her feelings about a father figure.

-----------------------------

Clements, Andrew. The School Story. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2001.

Creech, Sharon. Bloomability. New York: Harper Trophy, 1998.

Griswold, Jerry. Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America's Classic Children's Books. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Mish, Frederick C., editor. Merriam-Webster's CollegiateDictionary, 11th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003.

Paratore, Coleen Murtagh. The Wedding Planner's Daughter. New York: Simon & Shuster Books for Young Readers, 2002.

Stafford, Diane. 50,001 Best Baby Names. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2004.