The Nora Notebooks, Book 3: The Trouble with Friends

Author Claudia Mills Illustrated by Katie Kath

For Ages
7 to 10

The Nora Notebooks, Book 3: The Trouble with Friends is a part of the Nora Notebooks collection.

The final book in the Nora Notebooks series finds Nora trying to navigate the unscientific matter of making friends with someone you have nothing in common with.
 
Nora Alpers, fourth-grade scientist, likes things to be just so. Her ant farm, her hobbies, her friends. So when Coach Joe, her teacher, informs the class that all the students have to try something new and write a report about it, Nora is not pleased. She is…

An Excerpt fromThe Nora Notebooks, Book 3: The Trouble with Friends

1

 

 

“Signs of Spring,” Nora Alpers wrote at the top of a blank page in her favorite notebook, where she recorded interesting facts.

 

Beneath it, she wrote the best sign of spring: “1. ANTS!”

 

Her fourth-grade teacher, who called himself Coach Joe, had told their class to make lists of the signs of spring they were noticing now that last month’s record snowfall was finally melting. Nora knew the other kids in her class would be listing daffodils poking up, warmer weather, softball season beginning. Emma Averill would probably start with the Easter bonnet she had gotten for her cat, Precious Cupcake. Nora had already seen videos of Emma’s cat wearing her flower-trimmed straw hat.

 

Nora’s classmates probably hadn’t even seen the pavement ants beginning to march across the sidewalk in front of Plainfield Elementary School, foraging for new territory. They didn’t notice things like that.

 

Nora did.

 

Maybe this spring, she’d follow the ants to their nest. Maybe she’d even catch a glimpse of their queen. Nora had an ant farm at home, filled with ants busy doing fascinating things.