A Week in the Woods
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

Gr. 4-8. Mr. Maxwell has taught fifth-grade science and supervised the class weeklong field trip to a nearby New Hampshire state park for many years. He is sure of his teaching methods and equally confident that his respect for nature is transmitted, a hundred students at a time, through the sessions in the woods. Mark Chelmsley, clearly bright, bored, and (in Mr. Maxwell's opinion) probably spoiled, moves to the small New Hampshire town just weeks before the trip. It's inevitable that the two clash. The third-person narrative alternates between the powerful adult and the lonely, stalwart boy, allowing readers to see both characters' strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the week in the woods, both boy and man have changed. Clements' compassionate character studies are realistic and hopeful, and the characters' subtle conflicts and eventual transformations will linger with readers long after the book is finished. Francisca Goldsmith.

A showdown between an 11-year-old and his teacher occurs at the start of an annual environmental program when they spend a week in a wooded state park. Ages 9-13. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr 4-6-Angered by his family's move from Scarsdale, NY, to rural New Hampshire, Mark refuses to make friends or please his teachers. Because of his indifference, one teacher decides that he's dealing with a "slacker" and a "spoiled rich kid." To make matters worse, the fifth grader acts unimpressed with Mr. Maxwell's annual outing to the state park for a week of nature studies. However, the boy becomes increasingly interested in the outdoors and camping and signs up for the trip. On the first day there, the teacher discovers Mark with a camping tool that contains a knife, an item that students were asked not to bring. He decides that someone needs to teach the boy a lesson and decides to send him home. Mark runs away, gets lost, and must use his newly acquired skills to survive a night in the woods. The story explores both Mark's and Mr. Maxwell's point of view, and the final resolution of their conflict is effective. The boy's relationships with his ever-absent parents and his caregivers are interestingly developed. The novel includes a helpful map of the state park. Like many of Clements's titles, this one will be a popular choice, particularly with fans of Gary Paulsen and Jean Craighead George.-Jean Gaffney, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library, Miamisburg, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

New student Mark Chelmsley is branded a slacker by his science teacher, Mr. Maxwell. On the school's annual Week in the Woods camping trip, the two adversaries--rather predictably--become separated from the group and must spend the night alone in the woods. Though the plot and prose may be trite, Mark's transformation from slacker to outdoorsman is convincingly portrayed. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he'll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he's being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate's, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the "slacker" will be waiting for rescue around the next bend-and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark's neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen's or Will Hobbs's more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain-at length-everyone's history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy-but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers' ability to figure out for themselves what's going on in each character's life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)

Gr. 4-8. Mr. Maxwell has taught fifth-grade science and supervised the class weeklong field trip to a nearby New Hampshire state park for many years. He is sure of his teaching methods and equally confident that his respect for nature is transmitted, a hundred students at a time, through the sessions in the woods. Mark Chelmsley, clearly bright, bored, and (in Mr. Maxwell's opinion) probably spoiled, moves to the small New Hampshire town just weeks before the trip. It's inevitable that the two clash. The third-person narrative alternates between the powerful adult and the lonely, stalwart boy, allowing readers to see both characters' strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the week in the woods, both boy and man have changed. Clements' compassionate character studies are realistic and hopeful, and the characters' subtle conflicts and eventual transformations will linger with readers long after the book is finished. ((Reviewed October 1, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

Mark, the 11-year-old at the center of Clements's (Frindle; The Jacket) brooding and uneven novel, initially has no interest in making friends at his new school in Whitson, N.H., where his constantly traveling parents have just renovated and enlarged a 1798 farmhouse. Knowing that he's headed off to a prestigious boarding school next year, the boy has no incentive for pleasing his teachers and spends much of the day gazing out the classroom window. His science teacher, Mr. Maxwell, passes judgment on Mark before the boy finally decides to give the school a chance("The only kind of people Mr. Maxwell disliked more than slackers were... buy-the-whole-world rich folks"). A showdown between boy and teacher occurs at the start of the annual environmental program organized by Mr. Maxwell for the fifth graders, who spend a week in a wooded state park. The teacher's discovery of Mark with a tool containing a knife (which actually belongs to another boy) climaxes with a pursuit through the woods. Unfortunately, the suspenseful sequence that follows and the engaging denouement account for only a fraction of the novel. Laborious passages about Mark's family's home and barn and the boy's preparations for the school trip, plus perhaps a bit too much description of Mr. Maxwell's background, bog down the story line and may derail readers drawn to the book's enticing title. Ages 9-13. (Sept.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

A showdown between an 11-year-old and his teacher occurs at the start of an annual environmental program when they spend a week in a wooded state park. Ages 9-13. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Gr 4-6-Angered by his family's move from Scarsdale, NY, to rural New Hampshire, Mark refuses to make friends or please his teachers. Because of his indifference, one teacher decides that he's dealing with a "slacker" and a "spoiled rich kid." To make matters worse, the fifth grader acts unimpressed with Mr. Maxwell's annual outing to the state park for a week of nature studies. However, the boy becomes increasingly interested in the outdoors and camping and signs up for the trip. On the first day there, the teacher discovers Mark with a camping tool that contains a knife, an item that students were asked not to bring. He decides that someone needs to teach the boy a lesson and decides to send him home. Mark runs away, gets lost, and must use his newly acquired skills to survive a night in the woods. The story explores both Mark's and Mr. Maxwell's point of view, and the final resolution of their conflict is effective. The boy's relationships with his ever-absent parents and his caregivers are interestingly developed. The novel includes a helpful map of the state park. Like many of Clements's titles, this one will be a popular choice, particularly with fans of Gary Paulsen and Jean Craighead George.-Jean Gaffney, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library, Miamisburg, OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.