A Week in the woods / Andrew Clements.

Mark didn't ask to move to New Hampshire. Or to go to a hick school like Hardy Elementary. And he certainly didn't request Mr. Maxwell as his teacher. Mr. Maxwell doesn't like rich kids, or slackers, or know-it-alls. And he's decided that Mark is all of those things. Now the whole school is headed out for a week of camping -- Hardy's famous Week in the Woods. At first it sounds dumb, but then Mark begins to open up to life in the country, and he decides it might be okay to learn something new. It might even be fun. But things go all wrong for Mark. The Week in the Woods is not what anyone planned. Especially not Mr. Maxwell. With his uncanny knack to reach right to the heart of kids, Andrew Clements asks -- and answers -- questions about first impressions, fairness, loyalty, and courage -- and exactly what it takes to spend a Week in the Woods.

Reviews (5)

School Library Journal Review

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.

Publisher's Weekly Review

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

Horn Book Review

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.

Kirkus Review

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)

Booklist Review

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.

1 Preparations	p. 1
2 Leaving	p. 7
3 Not the Same	p. 14
4 Attitudes	p. 22
5 Zero Pressure	p. 26
6 Spoiled	p. 34
7 Skirmish	p. 45
8 Discoveries	p. 52
9 Testing	p. 66
10 Trial and Error	p. 77
11 Spring	p. 85
12 Gearing Up	p. 94
13 Readiness	p. 102
14 Zero Tolerance	p. 111
15 Retrial	p. 128
16 Into the Woods	p. 136
17 Tracks	p. 143
18 Bushwhacking	p. 150
19 Here	p. 161
20 Camp	p. 166
21 Found	p. 173
22 Home	p. 182

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary