48 pages • 1 hour read
Andrew ClementsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In early February, Mr. Bill Maxwell, the fifth-grade science teacher at Hardy Elementary School, is already planning the yearly week-long excursion to the woods in April. The trip is a traditional event that he organizes for the fifth graders before they graduate to middle school. Mr. Maxwell has been leading the program for 16 years and is very passionate about it; without him, the program might not exist at all. The “Week in the Woods” consists of “nature studies […] environmental science […] campfires […] creative writing […] storytelling [… and] woodcraft” (1). Mr. Maxwell is a large, burly man with ample outdoor experience living in a log cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. His two main joys in life are enjoying the outdoors and teaching; he lives off the land and strives to create as little pollution as possible. Growing up as a scout, Mr. Maxwell learned the value of preparation, which is why he starts planning months in advance. He checks out the campgrounds, plans the meals, and invites an Indigenous American speaker to discuss the history of the Pennacook and Abenaki tribes. Despite all this planning, however, Mr. Maxwell cannot be prepared for everything.
Mark Robert Chelmsley sits in his house as his two hired child caretakers, Anya and Leon, pack his belongings into a moving truck, preparing to leave Scarsdale, New York for what Mark considers to be the middle of nowhere: Whitson, New Hampshire. His parents are in San Francisco at a stockholder meeting, and Mark is left alone with his nannies to cope with the emotions of the move. He has lived in the city for three years after moving several times. Mark’s father has purchased a company and wants to move as soon as possible, so Mark must move in the middle of the school year. He is angry and melancholy about leaving his life behind and trading it in for a lifestyle he considers inferior. He hates the idea of going to a private school and finds it ironic that his parents want him to settle in at Hardy Elementary School despite only planning to spend a few months there. Mark walks into his old room, which is now empty, and finds a penny on the floor. He pushes it underneath the radiator as “proof that Mark Chelmsley lived the best three years of his life right here" (13). Mark goes downstairs and gets in the car, never looking back.
Mark arrives at his new home, a large mansion in the forest with an older portion built in the late 1700s and a new portion just recently finished. Anya calls Mark to come into the house, but Mark hesitates, wanting to take in the new surroundings. He notices that the storm that came to New York came here as well but left a lot more snow. Inside, Mark discovers that the kitchen is also split into old and new, with a huge stone fireplace on one side. He explores the rest of the house and finds a secret stairway behind a cupboard that was believed to be a shelter for enslaved people as they escaped through the Underground Railroad.
Mark finds the newer side of the house less interesting but appreciates the views of the land that the large windows provide. He stares out at the White Mountains in the east and is then called for dinner. Anya has prepared all of Mark’s favorite foods, and Leon expresses his joy over moving north. Both he and Anya are immigrants from Russia, and Leon prefers the rugged, colder environment. Afterward, Leon shows Mark the apartment that he and Anya will live in, and Mark attempts to seem interested but is in truth upset and disappointed. When Mark goes to bed, he stares at all of his old belongings and realizes that everything has changed.
The exposition of A Week in the Woods introduces the novel’s protagonist, Mark, and its deuteragonist, Mr. Maxwell, each in their own separate chapters. The author crafts an initial glimpse into each character’s life and outlook on the world, as well as their main conflicts and difficulties. Clement crafts the character of Mr. Maxwell to be a hard worker, an exacting instructor, and a proactive environmentalist whose respect for the environment and work ethic are so deeply ingrained that he soon runs afoul of The Dangers of Misjudgment and writes Mark off as an overly entitled troublemaker before really getting to know him. While Mark is also a hard worker, he resists the idea of putting effort into what he views as a temporary stay in Whitson, and as a result, he initially presents himself as sullen and angry due to the constant changes in his life. Once an initial understanding of these characters is developed, Clements seasons this basic conflict with a more detailed description of Mark’s new home at the Fawcett Place, but far from serving as a mere backdrop for the story, the mansion and its wild grounds will prove to be an important motif in the novel; indeed, the land becomes a character in its own right as Mark must learn to understand it and navigate its many quirks and challenges. Even before Mark takes his first fledgling steps into the world of survivalism, the severity of the surrounding wilderness is emphasized by the amount of snow when they first arrive. As the narration states, “Looking around, Mark thought maybe they had driven to a different planet. The storm that had promised one inch of snow for his old home had dropped eight inches onto his new one” (14). Although it takes time for Mark to open himself up at school, the intriguing history of the old farmhouse instantly fascinates him, and he quickly embraces his new home. The juxtaposition of old and new in the architecture of Fawcett Place pleases Mark, for he considers it an ideal opportunity to learn about and connect with the past. His eager appreciation for his new home provides a stark contrast with his reluctance to engage at school and indicates that, far from being a troublesome and unappreciative boy, Mark is in reality a deeply intelligent person who is merely going through a difficult series of transitions.
Additionally, the property and the New Hampshire wilderness in general create a strong impression of Mark’s deep immersion into his new world, and to enhance this effect, Clements includes a wide variety of rich descriptions that bring the landscape to life in loving detail. For example, the narration lingers long over the imagery of a single sunrise, stating:
The sky was clearing from west to east, and where there had been solid gray twenty minutes ago, now streaks of pink and gold spread along the underside of the clouds. The dark pines along the ridge, the tracery of leafless birch and maple trees, the rocky outcroppings—everything stood out in sharp relief against the blazing sky (18).
Clements frequently includes these detailed descriptions of the New Hampshire wilderness in an attempt to capture readers’ imaginations just as the love of the wild has clearly captured Mark’s soul.
Clements’s writing style is intentionally simplistic so as to be accessible to younger readers, and he relies on suspense, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers to maintain interest and inspire the reader to keep turning the pages. In Chapter 1, for example, Mr. Maxwell prepares for “A Week in the Woods” but is unable to foresee the drama and danger ahead. Although the climactic events of the story are far from being revealed, Clements uses intriguing cliffhangers to create a sense of mystery and curiosity. For example, he states that an unknown event will do this:
[H]ave an impact on this year’s Week in the Woods, but it [isn’t] on Mr. Maxwell’s long checklist. There was no way for him to be prepared, not for this. Mr. Maxwell had no idea what kind of trouble was coming his way. But it was. Trouble was definitely headed north (6).
In this way, Clements also uses repetition to emphasize emotion or create a fixation on one particular thought. Thus, Clements’s strategic isolation of words and phrases further emphasizes key ideas for the reader and singles them out for deeper consideration.
By Andrew Clements