51 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanFramed
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Social Context: Middle School and Seventh Grade
Framed, which was written in the middle of Gordon Korman’s literary career in 2010 and is the third book in a series of eight, concerns a group of 12-year-olds just entering the seventh grade. Korman himself penned his first book as a 12-year-old seventh grader: This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall, a title that went on to be published and to launch his 40-year literary career. Framed allows Korman to return to the scene of his first novel, where he demonstrates clear recollection of the tween middle school experience. The tween characters in the narrative, as with real pubescent children, have moved away from believing their parents are absolute authorities. They recognize that parents and other adults can make mistakes and can also be tricked and manipulated. The tweens balance their limited independence against the boundaries set by their parents. Taking the place of fealty to authorities is their reliance upon friends. The tweens’ highest priority is group friendship as reflected in loyalty to the group and deference given to the opinions of their closest friends; they view adults mostly as problematic obstacles.
The common middle school phenomenon of feeling excluded by those who are popular and attractive is the sine qua non that qualifies someone for membership in Griffin’s posse of friends. Every tween in the group has both exceptional abilities and an awkward characteristic that would exclude them from cliques of popular students: Melissa, the computer genius, is so painfully shy she hides her face behind long hair; Ben, clever and resilient, must keep his service ferret with him constantly to wake him from bouts of narcolepsy. Another classic middle school characteristic is the awakening of romantic attraction with little idea of what to do about it. Ben and Logan both fall for pretty, freckled, 11-year-old Lindsay. They get into a shoving match over her. Logan makes a fool of himself around her, and Ben has seen her only while hiding in the wood box on her front porch. As outlandish as the events of the story line might become, the descriptions of new middle-schoolers and their responses ring true.
Series Context: Korman’s Swindle Mystery Series
Having spent more than 40 years writing fiction, Korman has written more than 100 novels, many of them included in one of his 19 separate series. The series entries are consecutive, meaning that ongoing themes and motifs will be apparent to the readers as they read the books in order. Framed is the third of eight books in the Swindle series; each features Griffin Bing as the protagonist. The series draws its name from a character named Swindle, the villain of the first book, who cheats Griffin. Griffin assembles his rudimentary team for the first time to take back property that rightfully belongs to him. Each of the Swindle books follows a similar storyline: Griffin gets in over his head, devises outlandish plans involving himself and his posse, gets into deepening trouble with authority figures—parents, teachers, police officers, journalists—and ultimately succeeds in achieving his goal despite the problematic nature of his strategies.
Just as each book has particular motifs, the books in the series also share ongoing motifs. As the series progresses, Griffin adds members to his posse. In Framed, the newest addition is the unlikely Shank: extroverted, unfiltered, spontaneous, and physically overwhelming. Not all the additions to the storyline are humans. Luthor, the massive Doberman who begins the series as a threat to Griffin and his friends, becomes an integral member in the first book, so much so that variations of his face adorn the cover of all eight Swindle novels. In Framed, the mysterious pack rat at the center of the narrative, now named “Arthur,” becomes another of Savannah’s colorful pets. In each series novel, Griffin wins the grudging respect of another adult who had been a disbeliever. Throughout, Griffin’s nemesis is Darren Vader, the smart aleck, thuggish, popular athlete who is unaccountably jealous of Griffin, yet perpetually bested in their ongoing rivalry.
Social Context: Suburban New York City
Korman, Canadian by birth, moved to New York City in the 1980s to pursue a college degree and has remained in the vicinity throughout his literary career. Thus, he can invent Cedarville with authority; it’s a small bedroom community on Long Island, New York, from which workers such as Griffin’s father commute to the Big Apple. The real Cedarville, New York, is a crossroads near Utica, so the Cedarville Korman describes is fictional. Despite the proximity of Griffin’s hometown to New York City, Cedarville has few accoutrements associated with large city suburbs. The town is large enough to possess a correctional secondary school, John F. Kennedy (“Jail For Kids”) Alternative Education Center, but small enough that the middle school principal also serves as the football coach. The town is small enough that the newspaper’s busybody local columnist obsesses about a fictional crime wave perpetuated by middle school children. The kids at the center of the narrative are all depicted as living in single-family homes, most with basements, two stories, and attics. The contrast Korman draws is remarkable: Within quick driving distance of one of the world’s largest cities, there is a sleepy, throwback community of two-parent families containing only a few bad apples and a handful of kids who will eventually outsmart the villains, bring them to justice, and win the grudging respect of the grownups.
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