A WEEK IN THE WOODS
By Andrew Clements
Scholastic, 2003
The boys and I just finished reading this book together and we are in agreement: three thumbs up. The opening of A WEEK IN THE WOODS was solid and enjoyable. That’s where readers meet Mark Robert Chelmsley, a rich (really, really, really rich) fifth-grader who just moved to a new town and landed in the science class of Mr. Maxwell, a passionate and principled fifth grade teacher. As I said, this beginning was solid and enjoyable. It was the second half of the book, however, that grabbed our collective imaginations and would NOT let go.
Mr. Maxwell and Mark were clearly at odds and we, my boys and I, guessed that there would be a showdown at some point. We even suspected it would happen at A Week in the Woods, the fifth grade hands-on camping experience that Mr. Maxwell has organized for fifteen years. But we didn’t realize how wrapped up in it all we would become, or how hard it would be to put A WEEK IN THE WOODS down and do the things we had to do … like go to bed and go to school and go to work. The fact that we put some of these things off (mostly bedtime!) is a sure sign of a good read. I can’t tell you much more, because it would spoil A WEEK IN THE WOODS for you. But I can tell you that this is our favorite Andrew Clements book to date, three hands down.