The Report Card [Hardcover]

True or False?
Fifth grader Nora Rose Rowley is really a genius.
True.
But don't tell anyone.
Nora always gets average grades so she can forgo the pressure-cooker gifted program or Brainiac Academy.
But when Nora gets one hundred percent fed up over testing and the fuss everyone makes about grades, she brings home aterriblereport card just to prove a point.
Pretty soon her teachers, parents, and the principal are launching a massive effort to find out what's wrong. But can Nora convince them that tests alone are a stupid way to measure intelligence?A Reading Group Guide to

The Report Card
By Andrew Clements


About the Book

Fifth-grader Nora Rose Rowley has been keeping an unusual secret for most of her life. The secret is that she is very, very smart. She does not want her family, friends, or teachers to know that she is highly intelligent because she does not want to be singled out as different. She does not want to leave her regular fifth-grade class to attend the Gifted Program. Most of all, she does not want her best friend Stephen to feel less good about himself because she is so much smarter. It is this reason that leads Nora to draw a very smart conclusion: that tests and grades should not be the only way students are judged. To prove this, however, Nora sets a not-so-smart plan into action: She decides to flunk fifth grade. What begins as a simple effort to protect her friend and prove her point snowballs into a classroom-wide “Get a Zero” campaign that ultimately involves teachers, counselors, even school administrators and threatens to get both her and Stephen suspended. Worst of all, Nora’s secret is discovered. Or perhaps this is the best result, for now Nora must find a way to be her true, intelligent self as she navigates through the remainder of fifth grade, through family relationships and friendships, and through the rest of her life.