Nicholas "Nick" Allen is a class clown who has been formulating creative schemes throughout
grade school. At the start of
fifth grade in 1998, he is unhappy because his English teacher is the no-nonsense Mrs. Granger. One day, in an attempt to forestall, Nick decides to question Mrs. Granger on where each word in the
dictionary comes from. This backfires, as Mrs. Granger assigns him an
essay about it. From this experience, Nick learns that individuals get to determine what words mean, and when he comes across a gold-colored pen in the street, he decides to give a "pen" a new name:
frindle. Nick's classmates like the idea and soon, every child in the fifth grade starts using the word
frindle. Mrs. Granger makes any students who are caught saying
frindle stay after school and
write lines, but this proves to be a problem, as this causes almost every student to stay after school. The
school principal decides to visit Nick's house to end the use of
frindle, but the situation is beyond Nick's personal control, and the word's usage cannot be curtailed.
Frindle starts to gain national attention, and a family friend purchases the
merchandising rights to the word. The word
frindle spreads across the nation, and Nick thinks through the trouble that this one scheme has caused. In the
epilogue, Nick is a young adult. Mrs. Granger sends him a new copy of the dictionary, recently updated to include new words, including the word
frindle. She includes a letter, in which she explains that she intentionally stood against the word to make it more popular (à la
the Streisand effect). Nick sends back a present — the frindle that started it all,
engraved with the words, "This object belongs to Mrs. Lorelei Granger, and she may call it any name she chooses." ==Awards and honors==