[.ca] The Report Card (ISBN 0689845243)

a winner for anyone who has ever gotten a bad grade:
In a family of high achievers, Nora Rowley seems to be the odd one out. While her sister's grades and accomplishments are extraordinary, and her brother's are certainly far from lacking, she brings home a report card full of Ds. For years, Nora has convinced her parents, teachers and friends that she is nothing more than average; her brightest talent is on the soccer field. Nora, in truth, is anything but average. She takes college-level astronomy courses online and taught herself to understand Spanish by watching television. In short, she's a genius, but she hides her abilities from almost everyone because she doesn't want to be singled out. The only person who knows this is the school librarian, who discovers Nora's list of visited websites and sees Nora for what she is. Nora, in turn, confides in Mrs. Byrne. As an experiment, she is purposely scoring low to average on tests in order to show everyone that intelligence is not necessarily equal to your test scores. What she starts, instead, is a revolution. For anyone who has ever received a low test score and said, "I thought I did better than that!" or "I'm smarter than that!" this is a book to check out. As he did with FRINDLE and THE SCHOOL STORY, Andrew Clements creates a perfect setting to raise the question of "What if?" and take it beyond simple answers while keeping the story believable. Kids are heroes, and everyone wins in the end. --- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

Report Card:
This book is great! Would recommend this book ages 10+. This book may relate to some people. Clements is a great author.

Clements Writes Another Winner:
Fifth Grader Nora Rowley is a genius. However, she decided in kindergarten that she wished to be best friends with Stephen, a middle of the road kid, and that meant being a normal kid. Now she is in 5th Grade and dislikes what seems like many peoples obsessions over grades, and especially the way tests make Stephen feel, and so she hatches a plan to make people think twice about what they mean. This enjoyable novel carries not only Clements typical theme of the power of what kids can achieve but also a thoughtful discussion of grades and standardized testing. The ending sees Nora's opinions evolve and will leave readers with some things to think about.

A great way to open a dialogue about the value of grades:
Growing up, did you think your grades and test scores were an accurate representation of the complexity of who you were as a person? Probably not. Many of us felt misunderstood when our report cards arrived with their simplified picture of our educated selves. Nora -- a genius in hiding -- watches when the fourth grade standardized test changes her school culture for the worse. Suddenly school seems to be less about learning and more about competition, with the gifted kids streaming ahead. And Nora's best friend, Stephen -- a kind, gentle, hard-working young man -- suffers a terrible blow to his self-esteem when he freezes up and his resulting test score is abysmal. Nora's plan and execution give the reader the opportunity to think hard about our educational culture. From parental expectations to real estate prices, The Report Card does a great job of explaining how test scores became all important despite being an incomplete illustration. Clement's ability to sympathize with his characters makes this an ultimately hopeful read with no one minimized to "bad guy" status. Subversive thought it may be in its questionning of the subject matter, even parents who want their kids to get all A's will value the thoughtful respect with which the story is handled. A great read!!!

A great book!:
This a truly great book! I highly recomend it to you. The characters are colorful and the plot is great. So go out to your bookstore right know! You will definatley enjoy this book. 10 year old Nora is a genius, but nobody knows it. Nora is afraid that people will think of her as somebody else, not just plain old Nora. This book follows Nora's thoughts and how she learns that no matter what she will always be herself.