Extra Credit (Junior Library Guild Selection)

Andrew Clements has a very unique writing style and has quickly become one of my favorite children's authors. Clements delves deeply into showing, step-by-step, cause and effect in his stories' events and rationalizing among his characters. He is also apt to give pages and pages of back story to explain something happening in his books. He uses these techniques very effectively to give the reader a true understanding of what is happening on different levels in his stories.

In Clements's latest book, EXTRA CREDIT, Abby Carson is coasting in school - the only class she really puts her heart into is gym class, where she gives her all on a climbing wall she loves trying to scale. It's not that the classroom work is too difficult, but Abby just doesn't LIKE doing the work. Things have gone downhill from year to year, and now Abby learns that she is about to fail sixth grade!

Abby quickly looks for a way to avoid repeating sixth grade, and is told she MIGHT be able to pass if she does a few things - hands in every assignment, gets a B or better on every quiz and test, and does an extra credit project, corresponding with a pen pal in another country. From a short list of countries her teacher offers her, Abby chooses Afghanistan, because of its mountains and her love of climbing.

In a village near the Afghan capital of Kabul, teacher Mahmood has chosen his best student, Sadeed Bayat, to represent his country and correspond with Abby for her project. However, the village council has other ideas - they cling to the old traditions and believe it improper for a boy to be exchanging letters with a girl. Instead, Sadeed's little sister Amira will write the letters with Sadeed checking them over for quality.

Sadeed quickly grows impatient with Abby's attempts to compose a letter to Abby in English and offers to let her dictate in Dari (their language), and he will translate and write the letter in English, having her sign it when he is finished. When the first letter is "ready to go," Sadeed realizes that Amira has left questions unanswered and written a rather superficial letter. Sadeed rewrites the letter, adding his own thoughts to it. When he hands his teacher both letters, saying he knows that Amira's original should be the one to be sent, he does not see that his teacher sends Sadeed's letter instead.

What was, to Abby, just an unwanted, required extra credit assignment, quickly begins to grab her interest as she reads what life in Afghanistan is like - girls discouraged from attending school, rockets once bombing their village, and only one borrowed book in Amira's home. With Amira's second letter to Abby, Sadeed sends a separate one from himself, telling the truth of how he embellished Amira's first letter, and pouring his thoughts onto the page. Through the letters and a developing friendship, Sadeed and Abby learn not only about each other's countries and lives, but come to better understand and appreciate their own lives.

Eventually, some of those around both Sadeed and Abby take issue with the letter writing, and things grow increasingly complicated, even putting the safety of Sadeed and his village in jeopardy.

I also enjoyed Mark Elliott's 14 beautiful full-page pencil drawings.

AR gives this book a reading level of RL 5.3, which I would agree is accurate.

I would rate this book a 9 on a scale of 1-10.

Abby Carson, a likeable Illinois 6th grader, is in danger of being held back unless she brings her grades up and completes a...you guessed it....EXTRA CREDIT project. It involves exchanging letters with Amira Bayat and (less directly) her brother, Sadeed, who live in Afghanistan. There is a great deal of cultural information worked into the story, and readers who struggle may lose interest. (For those readers, Clement's NO TALKING might be a better choice for pleasure reading.) The illustrations and "handwritten" letters are well done and wisely included.

Those who already enjoy reading will find this another pleasurable Clements adventure, and those who don't take to reading so easily will still find a good story(while learning about another culture in the process.)This would be a strong choice for a social studies class to partner with a non-fiction book such as Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea: Young Readers Edition.

Great concept, poor execution. The amazing thing about Andrew Clements' books is that he writes in a way that is accessible to children without dodging the difficult stuff, but, at least in his earlier books, everything ends well. And while the ending here is fine, it's much more bittersweet than the classic Clements we grew up with, and while that does a lot to establish realism...it takes away from what makes Clements' books special. This book could have had one of those over-the-top hopeful endings that really do bring lasting change to a child's life over time, but instead went with a depressing shut door on a meaningful story with no hope left for the reader. It felt like half a book.

My fifth grader read this book and couldn't put it down. In her words "This story is about two very different people that interact and communicate by letters. They become not only friends but also become aware of each other's customs even though they are half way around the world from each other. I thought it was touching and I really felt for the people in the story."

Allow me a bold statement: Andrew Clements is, quite simply, an excellent writer--among the very best for children! His earlier novel for older children (9-12 and above), [[ASIN:0689818769 Frindle]], WAS his best creation, but now, I'm thinking that "Extra Credit" belongs right there on the shelf next to "Frindle" as Clements' tour de force novel.

"Frindle" is about the creative impulse and the impetus behind an idea to make it FLOW. Yet--when Clements made me get down on the floor in this novel and "see" those mountains-- wow, there are no words to express that moment of discovery that makes Abby see those mountains with Sadeed.

Abby Carson is a sixth grader in the middle of the year, who is advised that she will probably need to repeat sixth grade. Her scores are just too low and she has shown no signs of improving or even wanting to improve. Such a fear becomes her wake-up call. Please, what can I do? An extra credit project--write to a pen pal and create a display of your letters on the bulletin board.

So Abby gets a pen pal in Afghanistan--a pen pal chosen by the village elders. They pick Sadeed because his English and his writing skills are the best of all pupils in the village--however, Afghan culture prevents boys and girls from communicating, so his younger sister becomes the front as the letter writer.

Cultural differences await and will spill over into each other's neighborhood, becoming the focus of a situational divide. That is absolutely all I can reveal about this deeply impacting short novel. If I were in the classroom, I would make "Extra Crdit" required reading.

Reasons why this novel should be read by middle school students:
1. It's an excellent story.
2. The implications cause the reader to consider his/her own life in comparison
3. It's a great cultural introduction to a totally different way of life
4. It teaches geography and a bit of history
5. By happenstance, it raises the issue of compassion and encourages the reader to stretch one's sense of unique place in the universe

Bottom line: This novel is most highly recommended!

Clements has a good writing style to help get young non-readers started.

This book is great. My son loved this book so much that he was inspired to ask if he could get a pen pal and do a bulletin board project on it. So he is now writing his pen pal and do a project, but he doesn't get extra credit the they extra fun and experience of writing to someone new and a far away land.

Abby is a sixth grader who is failing just about every class. Her teachers are willing to promote her if she does all her homework and gets a B or better on every test and quiz for the rest of the school year. And, she needs to do an extra credit project. Abby's project is writing to a pen pal in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, Sadeed, a 12-year-old boy is chosen to be Abby's pen pal because he is the best at writing and reading English. However, due to Afghan custom a boy and girl cannot communicate like that so the elders decide that the letters should come from Sadeed's sister.
What can two people from two different parts of the world talk about? You'd be surprised. Another great book from Andrew Clements.

You don't have to be a kid to read this book to appreciate it's contents. I am an English teacher so reading and writing is a huge part of the curriculum. Andrew Clements writes a solid novel about Abby Carson, an American sixth grader, who takes up writing a pen-pal in Afghanistan as an extra credit project. Then there is the boy who writes under his sister, Amira. She speaks to him in their language and he translates and writes in English. Are you still following?

The story of the pen pal relationship between a boy writing as a girl to a girl his age in America wouldn't be so acceptable. He comes from a conservative village in the mountains where boys and girls are still chaperoned and follow tradition that boys shouldn't be writing to strange girls in a foreign country.

Anyway, the story is done well and the illustrations are nice too. This book is suitable for young children and their parents to discuss two different worlds between a girl on a farm in Illinois and a boy in the mountains of Afghanistan. There have similarities and differences as well that makes it endearing. I think the book could have been more engaging. I really felt that Abby wasn't well-developed as her Afghani-counterpart. I also thought that there could be more written as well.

Clements knocks it out of the park again. This story is so timely between a boy in a small village in Afghanistan and a girl in mid-western America. Both are in 6th grade and learn about each other through letters. The attitude towards Americans and girls for many of the small villages in Afghanistan is explained in words students can understand. The idea of how important schooling is hits hard and hits home for Abby, the American girl, when she it told she may be held back in 6th grade because she has chosen to not do assignments for school or put in the time studying to pass exams for the last couple of school years. Now her grades are too bad to pass to 7th grade. To pass she must complete all assignments with at least a B for the second half of the school year and do an extra credit assignment - write to a pen pal in another country. Little does she know just how much these two things are going to change how she looks at school and life. This book keeps even an adult interested. A real must read.