Nora Notebooks Books In Order

Publication Order of The Nora Notebooks Books

The Nora Notebooks is a series of novels written by Claudia Mills. The series reveals the exploits of one little girl as she attempts to understand and document the world around her in her notebooks.

+The Story

The Nora Notebooks are children’s stories that are designed to appeal to third and fourth graders. The books follow the exploits of Nora Alpers. If the name sounds familiar to you, it’s because Nora is a Claudia Mills bibliography veteran of sorts

You might recognize her from the Mason Dixon books where she first appeared as a supporting character. Claudia felt drawn to Nora. Something about her screamed of potential, so the author decided to explore her story via a separate series.

Nora Alpers is a precocious little girl with a curious mind. She has scientists for parents and they are always encouraging her to pursue her passions and to go exploring whenever she has questions. And that is exactly what she spends the Nora Notebooks series doing.

These books are called the Nora Notebooks because whenever Nora sets her sights on a particular topic to explore, she puts all the data she collects in her notebooks, reviewing the material at a later date in order to come up with proper conclusions.

These Claudia Mills books attempt to set Nora Alpers apart as a bit of a misfit in that she doesn’t exactly fit into the mold. Girls shouldn’t be playing with ants and they definitely shouldn’t be bringing ants into their home or taking ant farms to school.

But that is what sets Nora apart. She isn’t defined by what society says and she certainly won’t permit them to alter the way she behaves. Nora likes what she likes and she hates what she hates and no one will tell her otherwise.

When she finds a topic that piques her interest, Nora makes it a point to dissect it until she understands it down to the minutest detail. Nora’s biggest challenge is getting others to love the things she loves.

For instance, when she first decides to study the behaviors of ants and even brings her results to school, her classmates are more interested in looking at cat videos and talking about basketball practice. Not that the disinterest stops her from pursuing her goal. If anything, Nora finds that she is even more determined to study the behaviors of ants just so she can prove to everyone just how awesome the little insects can be.

The Nora Notebooks series boasts illustrations that help readers better visualize the scenes as they play out. Also included in the books are scientific facts about whatever Nora happens to be studying in that particular story.

From the way Nora is described, one can tell that she has a budding future as a scientist. Nora’s interests are always changing. Even when it looks like her world revolves around ants, it isn’t long before the injection of a baby into her family makes the insects the last thing she wants to think about.

However, Nora’s curiosity for study and exploration never changes. When her curiosity for babies outweighs her interest in ants, Nora wastes no time in picking up another notebook and making an effort to learn everything there is to know about babies.

Readers between the third and sixth grade will find the Nora Notebooks highly insightful. Besides delving into Nora’s curiosity, the books also explore the structure of school life and the dynamic relationships that can exist in such a community, this, in turn, revealing volumes about people in real life.

+The Author

Claudia Mills is a renowned author that has garnered a reputation for producing earnest stories about children in the real world. Claudia has a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s degree from Wellesley College and Princeton University respectively.

She also has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and an MLS Degree. Claudia loves children’s literature. As a child, the author was enamored by fantasy. But as she progressed through life and as her reading tastes expanded, she found that there was more joy to be found in producing realistic fiction about real kids living real lives in the real world.

The author can trace her publishing journey all the way to Four Winds Press where she worked as an editorial assistant. The position gave Claudia deep insight into the publishing arena. She came to understand what it took to write and get a book published. And once she got down to actually writing her own novels, Claudia applied the knowledge she acquired from her time at Four Winds Press, this making her debut in the publishing arena so much smoother.

Claudia didn’t even need an agent to get her first book published. With the connections she had and the knowledge she held, Claudia was able to open plenty of doors by herself.

A teacher at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Claudia uses her own memories of her childhood to gain inspiration for her stories. She also visits schools and directly witnesses life in Elementary and Middle School.

It helps that she has two children whose stories gave her the impetus she needed to get her earlier books off the ground. Claudia has admitted that writing children’s books isn’t always the easiest task. Because the books are so short, she has to maintain a peppy and relatively rapid pace, otherwise, the books drag on for longer than necessary.

+The Trouble With Ants

Nora Alpers is a curious girl and she’s decided to put her mind to understanding Ants. No one understands why but Nora doesn’t care. She gets herself a notebook and she begins to research them as she would any other subject.

However, no one at school cares, not when there are cat videos and baseball to talk about. Nora makes it her objective to show everyone why ants are so fascinating.

+The Trouble with babies

At ten-years of age, Nora Alpers has become an Aunt. Suddenly she must put her curiosity for ants aside just so she can learn as much as she possibly can about babies. Armed with her trusty notebook, it doesn’t take Nora long to realize that babies can be great sources of stress.