Speechless

Commended for the 2008 Best Books for Kids and Teens, short-listed for the 2008 Snow Willow Award and Ann Connor Brimer Award "No one pays much attention to you if you don't have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether." When his teacher announces that it's time for the yearly class speeches, Griffin Maxwell starts to sweat. His past experience with the dreaded speech was humiliating, to say the least, and he just knows there's no way he can go through that again. So Griffin's best friend, Bryan, comes up with a solution – one that's so simple it just has to work. But neither boy can begin to predict the bizarre chain of events that will be set in place when Griffin goes along with the idea. From squaring off with the school bully to reading a teacher's private letters, Griffin Maxwell will have to face things he never imagined, and all without saying a word! "No one pays much attention to you if you dont have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether." When his teacher announces that its time for the yearly class speeches, Griffin Maxwell starts to sweat. His past experience with the dreaded speech was humiliating. So Griffins best friend, Bryan, comes up with a solution. From squaring off with the school bully to reading a teachers private letters from Africa, Griffin will have to face things he never imagined, and all without saying a word! Griffin Maxwell is a quiet boy. He dreads the annual class speeches so he and his friend Bryan concoct a plan to get him out of it. Griffin writes a statement of a "Protest of Silence" against using children in Africa to fight wars. His protest leads to unintended consequences, one of which is being beaten up by the school bully Griffin plans to avoid his class speech by refusing to talk altogether in a fake protest against child soldiers. His actions set off a chain of events he could never have predicted