BBC7

In November 1990, Andrew Clements took a big dictionary to a school presentation in Rhode Island in the USA. He told the children that the book held a thousand years of thoughts and ideas. One child asked, "Where did the words come from?"

"Every word is made up by people who needed to explain something," explained Clements. He held up a pencil. "If everyone started calling this a frindle, the people who make dictionaries would notice that and put it in the dictionary."

Six years later, he turned his idea into a story that has been nominated for more than 35 children's awards in America and won many of them. Andrew explains that Frindle's main character, Nick, "is a combination of many kids I have known, including myself. Mrs. Granger (the teacher) is also constructed from bits of many teachers I have known and some I have worked with, again, including myself." The book has been translated into Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Andrew Clements says he likes writing school stories because school makes up such a big part of everyone's life.

Before Clements started writing books, he was a teacher:

4th grade, 8th grade and high school. He read aloud at every level, reading Hemingway to middle schoolers to "push the limits of their sense of story and literature." He has three grown up children.

He has written other books about school life including "The School Report."