Stephen’s school anxiety is the catalyst that triggers Nora’s plans to uproot the grade system. He starts believing that he’s unintelligent, and school becomes a stressor rather than a place of curiosity. In fourth grade, Stephen’s patience and love of learning, which Nora admires, dims when the standardized Connecticut Mastery Testing (CMT) ranks him in a lower percentile of students. She slowly befriends him, and they remain friends throughout their school years. She cycles through every classmate, studying their behaviors and activities, and she notices that her favorite person to study is Stephen. In kindergarten, Nora discovers that the best way to appear average is to imitate her peers. Consequently, Nora quickly learns how to hide her extraordinary gift. She has known she is different from an early age, but she doesn’t like the way people watch her when she displays her intelligence. Nora can remember every detail of her life from the time her mom bottle-fed her. Second, she got those Ds for Stephen’s sake.

Stephen remains in the dark about two things: First, Nora is secretly a genius, and she earned those Ds on purpose. Nora finally relents, and Stephen-shocked-discovers her report card is mostly Ds. Nora Rowley, 9, has her report card in-hand on the bus ride home, and her best friend, Stephen Curtis, keeps pestering about her grades. This guide references the 2012 Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Reprint e-book edition of the novel.

In 2005, The Report Card won the William Allen White Children’s Book Award, a student-voted award in the state of Kansas. He has since published over 80 books, including Frindle (1996) and No Talking (2007), and has received several awards and accolades. Clements taught in public schools north of Chicago for seven years before becoming a full-time writer, drawing inspiration from his education experience. The story explores themes about the importance of grades, the responsibilities around using intelligence well, and the beauty of the ordinary. Nora Rowley has never worried about report cards, but by fifth grade, she realizes the negative impact of grades and test scores on her classmates-especially her best friend, Stephen Curtis-and decides to do something about it. The Report Card is a 2004 middle grade novel by prolific children’s author Andrew Clements that tells the story of a young genius who has kept her intelligence a secret for her entire life.

The report card clements