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A Tale from the Halls

By Elizabeth Winchester

Hart Evans, a popular sixth grader at Palmer Intermediate, has just one complaint: He can't stand chorus with Mr. Meinert. He hates practicing the same dull holiday concert songs over and over. After Hart shoots a rubber band during practice, a fed-up Mr. Meinert tells the students that they can put on the concert themselves.

Andrew Clements tells this tale in his new book, The Last Holiday Concert. Clements, who has written more than 50 books for children, is known for his stories about school. His book The Report Card raises questions about the value of grades and standardized testing. In The Last Holiday Concert, Mr. Meinert's job is in jeopardy because the school doesn't have enough money to pay for music and art teachers.

"A lot of people think that I'm tackling big issues in schools, but that's not really what I'm trying to do with my books," Clements told TFK. "All I'm really trying to do is tell stories about kids and teachers in schools."

Clements gets ideas from his own experiences. He grew up in New Jersey and Illinois. After college, Clements was a teacher in Illinois for seven years. He is also the father of four boys.

Clements stopped teaching to start a career as a songwriter. "It was the first time I had made myself sit down on a regular basis and try to create something," he says. After that experience, writing books came naturally.

While movie producers work to turn Clements's 1996 best-seller, Frindle, into a film, the author is finishing up his next book, which is called Lunch Money. As fans would expect, the story is set in a school, not in a fantasy world. Says Clements: "I find real life very inspiring."

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