Andrew Clements’s debut novel Frindle was published in 1996, and the book went on to sell 6.5 million copies. Clements went on to publish dozens more titles, many of which fall into the school stories subgenre of middle-grade fiction.

Elements of a school story typically include a protagonist who is facing a problem that takes place primarily at school, such as grades, a bully, a project, or a social issue. The antagonist is usually a bully, or whomever stands in the way of the protagonist accomplishing his or her goals. This can also be a teacher, a principal, or even a publisher, as seen in Clements’s 2001 title, The School Story. Clements’s school stories tend to bring larger-than-life concepts to the setting of ordinary schools. In Frindle, the protagonist invents a word that becomes unbelievably popular; in The School Story, the protagonist writes a novel as a sixth-grader; and in The Losers Club, Alec Spencer rebrands the word loser into a palatable—even desirable—title. Each of Clements’s school stories remains true to the genre while still exploring the unlikely, the insurmountable, and the unexpected.