Big Nate: In a Class by Himself

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself (referred to as Big Nate: The Boy with the Biggest Head in the World in the United Kingdom & Ireland) is a children's fiction novel based on the Big Nate comic strip, written and illustrated by American cartoonist Lincoln Peirce. It is the first of the Big Nate novel series, followed by Big Nate Strikes Again. It was published on March 23, 2010 by HarperCollins and was nominated in 2011 for a Children's Choice Book Award by the Children's Book Council.^[1]

Plot

Sixth grader Nate Wright is dreaming when he wakes up to another ordinary morning of his life: breakfast of lumpy raisin oatmeal, his annoying older sister Ellen, and school. Believing that there will be a test that day after seeing his friend Francis studying through his window, Nate becomes afraid of failing the test and having to attend summer school. Nate forgets his lunch and attempts to forge an excuse note, only to be caught by his best friend Francis. Nate confesses to the forgery, to which Francis replies that there was no test scheduled for that day. At school Nate's second best friend Teddy gives Nate some General Tso's chicken, Spare ribs, eggs and a fortune cookie at lunch. The fortune cookie tells him that "TODAY YOU WILL SURPASS ALL OTHERS".

Despite previously not believing in fortune cookies due to their usually nonsensical meanings, Nate chooses to believe what the fortune claims. The school day starts off with Social Studies with Mrs. Godfrey, in which Nate makes up insulting names about Mrs. Godfrey, in which he is caught by the teacher whom he insulted and gets a detention slip. In English, Nate yells at his nemesis Gina for publicly humiliating him for writing a love letter to his crush, Jenny, and is caught by Mrs. Clarke. During Mr. Rosa's art class, Nate sees that his rival Artur's picture has received the spotlight instead of his own picture, causing Nate to attempt to convince Mr. Rosa to place his (Nate's) picture in the spotlight instead. When Mr. Rosa refuses, Nate attempts to swap the pictures himself, only to get caught by Mr. Rosa and get his third detention slip of the day.

After that, Nate attempts to break a world record for speed-eating in the cafeteria by eating 45 slices of pizza in ten minutes, only to discover that pizza is not being served in the cafeteria that day. Instead Nate is encouraged by Francis to eat 148 servings of green beans, one of Nate's least favorite foods, as no-one eats their green beans at lunch. The record setting is cut short when Principal Nichols notices the commotion and yells at Nate, causing him to spit the green beans in his mouth onto the floor. Principal Nichols then asks Nate to clean up the mess, before slipping in a puddle of juice, causing him to give Nate both a lecture and his fourth detention slip of the day.

As a result Nate ends up being late for gym. Nate attempts to wash the bean taste out of his mouth, only for water to spill onto his gym clothes, making it appear as if he'd wet himself. Unable to find any other gym shorts, Nate grabs a pair of large shorts, which ends up belonging to the substitute gym teacher, Coach John. Because of this, Nate is forced by Coach John to run sprints and is given yet another detention slip. In Math, Mr. Staples assigns a pop quiz, which Nate appears to just barely have finished with twelve minutes to spare. After time is up, Nate discovers that the quiz was double sided and that he'd only done the front side. Nate attempts to finish the back of the quiz, only to get caught by Mr. Staples. Both parties tug on the quiz paper, only for it to rip and cause Nate to receive a detention slip from Mr. Staples.

During Science, Nate attempts to get Mr. Galvin to laugh using several pranks, only for his pen to get confiscated. When the pen stains Mr. Galvin's shirt, Nate ends up laughing hysterically, prompting Mr. Galvin to give Nate a detention slip. At the end of the day Nate has to report to detention, only for Ms. Czerwicki to inform Nate that he has "surpassed all others" in P.S. 38 in receiving the most detention slips in one day: 7. Upon realizing that his fortune had "come true", Nate becomes happy and vain therefore leading to writing on his desk signs "NATE WRIGHT, SCHOOL RECORD HOLDER", disrespecting the "no writing on desks" rule.

Characters

• Nate Wright - The main protagonist; an egocentric, naive, and sarcastic sixth-grader.
• Teddy Ortiz - Nate's #1A best friend, who is a jokester and known to annoy Nate.
• Francis Pope - Nate's #1 best friend, who is known for his high intelligence.
• Marty Wright - Nate's somewhat clueless father, who plays golf and is known to make horrible food.
• Ellen Wright - Nate's older sister, who is the complete opposite of Nate. She is highly favored by Ms. Godfrey, as she was once her student.
• Ms. Clara Godfrey - Nate's social studies teacher, who he dislikes (which is shown by his twenty nicknames). In the book, she gives Nate two detentions: for his list of nicknames for her and throwing a lemon square at her posterior (thought the latter was actually by a kid named Randy Betancourt).
• Gina Hemphill-Toms - Nate's nemesis and Mrs. Godfrey's favorite student in the class.
• Jenny Jenkins - Nate's love interest, whom he met in first grade. However Jenny does not return Nate's feelings, and instead goes out with Artur for "four months, six days, and three-and-a-half-hours", according to Nate.
• Artur Pashkov - Jenny's boyfriend and Nate's "arch-nemesis"; a Belarusian exchange student, who speaks some broken English and unintentionally annoys Nate with his superiority and great luck. Artur is unaware of Nate's feelings toward him and considers him a friend. The two's "rivalry" began when Artur beat him in chess and knocked him down to the second best chess player in the chess club.
• Principal Wesley Nichols - Nate's school principal, who acts nice to him and mean. In the book, he gives Nate detention for wasting lunch servings (green beans) by spitting them out and making Nichols slip on them.
• Coach John - A substitute gym teacher at Nate's school who loves to show off his injuries and is described by Nate as a "sergeant without an uniform". In the book, he gives Nate detention for wearing his own gym shorts during class (as he thought Nate was trying to ridicule him), when Nate actually just needed them, as he accidentally poured water on his own, while trying to wash green beans off his mouth.
• Ms. Clarke - Nate's English teacher, who gave him detention for shouting at Gina for ruining his love poem to Jenny.
• Mr. Staples - Nate's maths teacher, who gave him detention for ripping his maths test (though this was because Nate did not do the other side of the test and did not have time to finish). He is known to tell corny knock-knock jokes.
• Mr. Galvin - Nate's science teacher, known to for his boring personality and lack of laughter, who gave him detention for laughing at the ink of Nate's confiscated cartooning pen (as Nate tried to make him laugh at his "Doctor Cesspool" comic strip, and his other previous failed attempts) getting all over his shirt.
• Ken Rosa - Nate's art teacher, who gave Nate a detention for destroying the knob off the spotlight case (where students' pictures is selected to be in there), after his failed attempt to outshine Artur by putting his picture in there.
• Ms. Shipulski - Principal Nichols's secretary.
• Ms. Czerwicki - The detention monitor.

Reception

Booklist and Publishers Weekly praised Big Nate: In a Class by Himself,^[2] with Publishers Weekly calling the character of Nate "sharp-witted and unflappable".^[3] Kirkus Reviews recommended the book as a read for "fans of Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid", stating that Pierce "skillfully and often hilariously imports his comic-strip character into a full-length story."^[4] The School Library Journal also gave the book a positive review, stating that "Kids will love Nate and all the trouble he gets into" and recommending it as a way to entice children into reading.^[5][6]

References