TY  - BOOK
AU  - Clements,Andrew
AU  - Elliott,Mark
TI  - Extra Credit
SN  - 9781416949312
U1  - F CLE 
PY  - 2011///
CY  - New York
PB  - Atheneum
KW  - Letters
KW  - Fiction
KW  - Pen pals
KW  - Family life
KW  - Afghanistan
KW  - bisacsh
KW  - FICTION / General
N1  - GRL: U
N2  - It isn’t that Abby Carson can’t do her schoolwork. She just doesn’t like doing it. And in February a warning letter arrives at her home. Abby will have to repeat sixth grade—unless she meets some specific conditions, including taking on an extra credit project: find a pen pal in a distant country. Seems simple enough.
But when Abby's first letter arrives at a small school in Afghanistan, the teacher takes it to the village elders. And everyone agrees that any letters going back to America must be written well in English. And the only qualified student is a boy, Sadeed Bayat. Except in this village, it is not proper for a boy to correspond with a girl. So Sadeed’s younger sister will write the letters. Except she knows hardly any English. So Sadeed must write the letters. But what about the villagers who believe that girls should not be anywhere near a school? And what about those who believe that any contact with Americans is . . . unhealthy?
As letters flow back and forth—between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of central Asia, across cultural and religious divides, through the minefields of different lifestyles and traditions—a small group of children begin to speak and listen to each other. And in just a few short weeks, they make important discoveries about their communities, about their world, and most of all, about themselves
ER  -