Big Nate: In a Class by Himself
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, Ireland and Australia) is a children's fiction novel based on the "Big Nate" comic strip, written and illustrated by American cartoonist Lincoln Peirce. It is the first of the "Big Nate" novel series, followed by Big Nate Strikes Again. It was published on March 23, 2010, by HarperCollins and was nominated in 2011 for a Children's Choice Book Award by the Children's Book Council. Plot . Nate Wright is having a nightmare about his teacher Mrs. Godfrey; he is initially relieved to wake up, but when he realizes he woke up to another ordinary morning of his life: a breakfast of lumpy raisin oatmeal, his annoying older sister, Ellen, and school, he wants to go back to sleep. Believing that there will be a test that day after seeing his best friend Francis studying through his window, Nate becomes afraid of failing his test and having to attend summer school. He attempts to forge an excuse note, only to be caught by Francis. Nate confesses to  the forgery, and Francis replies that there was no test scheduled for that day, he was just reading his textbook for fun. At school, Nate realizes he forgot his lunch, so his second best friend Teddy offers to share his lunch and gives Nate a fortune cookie to hold him over in the meantime. When Nate opens the fortune cookie, it tells him: "Today you will surpass all others". Despite not believing in fortune cookies due to their often nonsensical meanings, Nate chooses to believe what the fortune claims. The school day starts off with homeroom and Social Studies with  Mrs. Godfrey, where Nate creates a list of insulting nicknames for Mrs. Godfrey. Godfrey catches him and gives him a detention slip (ironically, Nate almost got one for eating in homeroom). In English, Nate yells at his nemesis Gina for humiliating him for writing a love poem to his crush, Jenny, and is caught by Ms. Clarke. During Mr. Rosa's art class, Nate sees that his frenemy Artur's picture received the spotlight instead of his own, causing Nate to attempt to convince Mr. Rosa to place Nate's picture in the spotlight instead. When Mr. Rosa refuses, Nate  attempts to swap the pictures himself, only to damage the display case, get caught by Mr. Rosa, and get his third detention slip of the day (it was the first one Mr. Rosa had handed out all year). During lunch in the cafetorium (what Nate's school calls the cafeteria), Nate decides to break a world record for speed-eating by eating 60 hot dogs or 45 slices of pizza in 10 minutes, only to discover that neither hot dogs nor pizza is being served that day. Instead, Nate is encouraged by Francis and Teddy to eat 148 servings of  green beans, one of Nate's least favorite foods, as no one eats their green beans at lunch. The record setting is cut when Principal Nichols notices the commotion and yells at Nate, causing him to spit the green beans in his mouth onto the table in order to speak. Principal Nichols then declares lunch over and orders Nate to clean up the mess, before slipping in a puddle of bean juice, causing him to take Nate to his office, where he gives Nate both a lecture and his 4th detention slip of the day. As a result, Nate ends  up being late for gym class. Nate attempts to wash the mess from the green bean juice off his mouth in the locker room, only for water to spill onto his gym shorts, giving the impression that he wet his pants. Unable to find any other gym shorts, Nate grabs a pair of large shorts, which ends up belonging to the substitute gym teacher, Coach John, who gets the impression that Nate is mocking him. Because of this, Nate is forced by Coach John to run wind sprints and is given yet another detention slip. In Math, Mr. Staples assigns  a pop quiz, which Nate at first thinks there are twelve questions and appears to finish ahead of everyone else with 10 minutes to spare. After time is up, Nate discovers that the quiz was double sided with eight more questions (twenty total), and that he'd only done the front side. Nate attempts to finish the back of the quiz, only to get caught by Mr. Staples. Mr. Staples attempts to take the quiz paper, but Nate refuses to hand it in unfinished, resulting in a "tug of war," causing the quiz to rip in half, and also causing  Nate to receive a detention slip from Mr. Staples. During Science, Nate attempts to get Mr. Galvin to laugh using pranks and jokes, believing that he will be the first to make the stoic Galvin laugh. The attempts fail, and Galvin confiscates Nate's pen because he does not approve of the funny comic Nate drew for him. When Mr. Galvin doesn't know the pen cap is open, it ends up staining Mr. Galvin's shirt in the process. Nate ends up laughing, prompting Mr. Galvin to give Nate his seventh and final detention slip of the day. At  the end of the day, Nate begins heading to the detention room while flashing back to the last time he had detention: while Nate and Francis were running the chess club bake sale, one of Nate's rivals, a boy named Randy, stole one of Francis's mom's lemon squares. When Nate confronts him, Randy throws the square away and it hits Mrs. Godfrey, who begins to write a detention slip for Nate after Randy blames Nate for throwing the lemon square, causing Nate to throw his dad's coconut yogurt pie (which no one was touching) in Randy 's face, earning him five detentions. Back in the present, Nate reports to the detention room, where the room monitor Mrs. Czerwicki informs Nate that he had received more detention slips in one day than anyone else in P.S. 38 (seven), essentially "surpassing all others". Upon realizing that his fortune "came true", Nate becomes happy, therefore leading to sign a drawing he had made on his desk the last time he had been in detention: "By NATE WRIGHT, SCHOOL RECORD HOLDER". Reception. Booklist and Publishers Weekly praised "Big Nate: In a Class by Himself", with Publishers Weekly calling the character  of Nate "sharp-witted and unflappable". Kirkus Reviews recommended the book as a read for "fans of Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid", stating that Pierce "skillfully and often hilariously imports his comic-strip character into a full-length story." The School Library Journal also gave the book a positive review, stating that "Kids will love Nate and all the trouble he gets into" and recommending it as a way to entice children into reading.