The School Story

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The School Story is a novel by Andrew Clements. The story tells of a twelve year old girl named Natalie Nelson and her friend Zoe Reisman. Natalie is a good writer, and one day her mother, Hannah Nelson, who is an editor, tells Natalie that their company needs to publish more school stories, which Natalie decides to do. The novel she starts writing is titled "The Cheater". Zoe thinks the novel is terrific and ought to be published. However, Natalie is afraid the novel will not be accepted by her mom. Zoe has an idea, and gives Natalie a homework assignment: to find out who is Ted Geisel. Natalie finds out Ted Geisel is a pseudonym, a false name an author uses (i.e.,Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens). So they give themselves both a pen name; Natalie as Cassandra Day and Zoe as Zee Zee Reisman. Zoe is Natalie's agent. Finally, the novel is read by their English teacher, Mrs. Clayton. She agrees that the novel is excellent as well.

Zoe gives Mrs. Clayton $500 to pay for an agent office. The office costed $347.75 for a monthly rental. However, Mrs. Clayton does not think it is right to use her own student's money, so she pays for the office herself, and deposits $347.75 into her bank account. That made Mrs. Clayton feel better.

Finally, after the ninety-seven page manuscript is finished, it is sent to her mom. The editors agree that the novel is perfect. One said that they could not stop reading the novel. Then after a long debate, the novel is published. But mistake-----, there was someone already named Cassandra Day in New York City. Natalie's mother is surprised to find out that the novel was written by her own daughter. She feels happy about the publish.

Finally, the story ends when Natalie's mother is promoted to head of all editors. The original boss, Letha Springfield is dropped to Vice-President.