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Big Nate In a Class by Himself features spoilers, so if you have not read/watched this, do not read this article
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Book


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, Australia & Ireland) is the first novel in the Big Nate Book Series. The book was published on March 23, 2010 by HarperCollins. It was written and illustrated by Lincoln Peirce.

Dedication[]

"For Jessica"

The book is dedicated to Jessica Gandolf, Lincoln Peirce's wife.

Review[]

"Big Nate is funny, big time" - Starred review from Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid in the cover of the book.

Book description[]

"Nate knows he's meant for big things. REALLY big things."

"But life doesn't always go your way just because you're awesome."

"Trouble always seems to find him, but Nate keeps his cool no matter what. He knows he's great. A fortune cookie told him so."

"For fans of the hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid series: Here comes BIG NATE, accidental mischief maker and definitely NOT the teacher's pet."

Plot[]

Chapter 1[]

Nate Wright has a dream about Mrs. Godfrey asking a question to his class at school. Nate is about to get in trouble when he wakes up to his alarm. Relieved, he tries to go back to sleep, but his father wakes him up. Nate gets up, and starts changing. He gets a bad feeling that he has a test at school, so he checks on his friend, Francis Pope. When he sees Francis reading a social studies textbook, he is convinced that there is a test. He panics, because he left his textbook in his locker, at school. And if he does poorly on this test, he could "very well be heading off to summer school.” according to Mrs. Godfrey. He frantically rushes to find his class notes, and when he finds them, he breathes a sigh of relief, before realizing that he doodled on his notes, making them unreadable.

Chapter 2[]

As Nate has breakfast, (lumpy oatmeal) he is still freaked out at the prospect at going to summer school. Nate has never actually been to summer school (in the novels) so he has no idea what it is even like. Nate says Francis thinks that its probably just like regular school, but other kids suggest that in summer school, the staff make you do activities that result in repairing/cleaning the school, which Nate is not looking forward to. A few minutes later, Marty (Nate's father) asks Nate and his sister Ellen what was happening in school. Ellen then goes on an unending ramble on things that she was doing well on, but Marty cuts her off and directly asks Nate the same question. Nate then denies that anything was happening at school, and Marty is unsure on whether Nate is lying or not, so he gives him "The Look". Nate escapes the house before Marty asks anymore questions but he left before finishing his breakfast. When he gets outside, he trips on Spitsy, not paying attention to where he is going. Nate gets mad at first, but then he realizes that Spitsy could help him think of a plan to get out of the Social Studies test and not failing and having to go to summer school. They brainstorm for a couple of minutes and they come up with a few different plans, but they are all rejected for their own reasons. His only acceptable plan that Nate can come up with is to skip school altogether.

Chapter 3[]

Nate thinks it's an amazing plan at first, but then he realizes he can't do it because of "The Machine". So he has to go back to the drawing board. After thinking for a while, he remembers when Alan Olquist got out of Science Class the day before because he had to go get a wart zapped. Nate realizes that he could do the same by forging an excuse letter from Marty. However, he stops writing after remembering that forgery is a crime. He's thinking about ripping the note to shreds when Francis comes up behind him and asks him what he is doing. Nate denies doing anything until he finally cracks and tells Francis what he was just doing, mentioning the Social Studies test. Francis then tells Nate that there isn't a test, which makes Nate jump for joy. Francis then adds that he LIKES the tests that Mrs. Godfrey gives, which result in Nate whacking him with his notebook. Francis then gets up and throws his notebook at Nate, knocking Nate to the ground.

Chapter 4[]

Nate is still on the floor when Teddy walks up to him and cracks a joke. He then tells all about how he and Teddy became friends. Teddy then challenges Nate and Francis to a race to the school flagpole. Teddy gets a head start but he is soon passed by Nate, who is sprinting full speed towards the flagpole. As Nate looks back, however, he is not looking where he's going and he crashes at full speed into Principal Nichols. Nate thinks he's in big trouble, but Principal Nichols (amazingly) says that it was his fault for not looking where he was going. Nate then accidentally insults Principal Nichols by comparing him to a giant air bag. When Nate finally gets inside P.S. 38, he goes to his locker to put away his lunch, but when he checks his bag, he realizes it's not there. Nate flashes back to when he ran out of his house and realizes he didn't have time to pack his lunch into his bag. Teddy reassures Nate and tells him that he has leftovers from when his family went out to eat Chinese the day before. Teddy tosses Nate a fortune cookie, and Nate cracks it open to find a fortune that says: "Today you will surpass all others".

Chapter 5[]

Nate is still ecstatic from reading the fortune as he walks into Mrs. Godfrey's Social Studies Classroom, his homeroom at P.S. 38. When Francis asks Nate why he's so happy, Nate shows the fortune to Francis, saying that he's always been "destined for greatness". Francis then remarks that they can rule out academic achievement as a possibility for Nate to be great in, which results in Nate hitting Francis with his notebook for the second time that day. His tummy growls, a result from him running out of his house without finishing his breakfast. He eats the fortune cookie, thinking that it was better than nothing. As he is chewing, Gina sees what Nate is doing and snitches on him because it is a class rule that students aren't allowed to eat food in class. Mrs. Godfrey immediately stands up and walks toward Nate, who swallows the last fortune cookie crumbs right as Mrs. Godfrey arrives at his desk. She tells him to open his mouth, and when she doesn't see anything, she tells Gina that she must have been mistaken. Suddenly the morning announcements are announced over the speaker. After the morning announcements conclude, signaling the end of homeroom, Nate says that he is still sitting at his desk because homeroom is followed by first period Social Studies, which is taught by Mrs. Godfrey, meaning that Nate doesn't switch classrooms after homeroom, making him upset. Nate says that the rest of the school day was "only up from here", as he goes through his normal school schedule, ending with Period 7, which is Science Class taught by Mr. Galvin. He mentions that the highlight of the year was when Mr. Galvin's dentures fell out. Nate adds that that was when he gave Mr. Galvin the nickname "Shifting Plates". Nate says that he’s the official “nickname czar” of P.S. 38. He then takes out a list of nicknames that he has come up with for Mrs. Godfrey, but while he is reading it, Mrs. Godfrey comes up behind him and snatches the list away. After reading the list, she gives Nate a detention for “insolence” and when Nate wonders aloud what insolence means, Mrs. Godfrey gives him a dictionary and angrily tells him to look it up.

Chapter 6[]

After Social Studies, Nate, Teddy, and Francis get out of class and start walking to English. Nate mentions that “insolence” means, according to him, “acting like a brat” to which Teddy responds that it sounds like Nate himself. Nate considers smacking him with his notebook, but abstains when he remembers that Teddy will share his lunch with him. As soon as that happens, Artur and Jenny walk by, and Teddy says hi to both of them, to which they return the greeting and walk past. Nate, however, refrains from greeting them and introduces Artur and Jenny as they have not been mentioned previously. While he thinks about both of them, he suddenly realizes that his fortune could mean that Jenny could dump Artur and start going out with him instead. Ms. Clarke then asks for her students' attention, which promptly brings Nate back to the present. Ms. Clarke announces that the class will have to finish up their poetry unit by writing any poem they would like to write. While she lists down examples for poems to write, she mentions a love poem, which gives Nate the idea to write a love poem to Jenny. When he starts coming up with rhymes for the word "Jenny", however, Gina sneaks up behind him and reads what he is writing. Then she quickly shouts to Jenny that Nate is writing her a love poem. When Nate, embarrassed, rips up his poem, Ms. Clarke asks if there is a problem, to which Nate responds, saying that there was "sort of" a problem. Ms. Clarke says that poetry comes from the heart, to which Nate, infuriated at Gina for embarrassing him, shouts out "THAT GINA SHOULD KEEP HER BIG FAT MOUTH SHUT!", and then quickly covers his mouth, realizing that he was not going to say that.

Chapter 7[]

When Nate,Francis and Teddy walk out of the English class, Francis says, "So let me get this straight, GINA's the one who should keep her big fat mouth shut?". Nate says that she should as he cannot see that he gets detention and Gina says nothing. Francis states that Gina never gets in trouble and she gets other people in trouble. Nate sarcastically says that Francis made a good observation and Nate did not know that. Then Teddy asks Nate to show the detention slip which stated that Nate got detention for "being disruptive in class and insulting to a classmate(Gina)". Francis then says to Nate that he was pretty insulting. Nate then says that he could be more insulting and that was nothing. He proves this point by making a joke on Teddy. Before the joke got too out of control, Francis sees something that he wants Nate and Teddy to see. He wanted to show the display case. Nate then says that in PS 38, there are two display cases. One outside the principal's office which contains medals, trophies, ribbons and ancient basketball team photos. The other is outside Mr Rosa's art room which is much cooler.

Characters[]

Gallery[]

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