Andrew Clements' The Janitor's Boy is set in a tiny
town by the name of Huntington in the state of
Minnesota.
We first learn the protagonist, Jack Rankin, lives in
Huntington in the second chapter of the book. In the opening chapter, the narrator describes Jack as completing his prank of vandalizing a school desk with chewing gum, a prank intended as an act of revenge. In the second chapter, the narrator explains that Jack would not normally have pulled such a prank, but Jack's fifth-grade year was an odd year for him that made him feel uncomfortable and pressured. It was an odd year for him and his classmates because "the town of Huntington was growing, and more families with kids were moving in all the time." The narrator further explains that the town's schools were developing some problems with overcrowding. As a result, the "middle...
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graders," including grades four through eight, had to attend classes at theold high school, the same school
where Jack's father works as a janitor, which is an embarrassment for
Jack and creates the story's conflict.
We are given the first clue that the town of Huntington is
located in the state of Minnesota in chapter
12, when Jack reports to the school library to clean the gum off the
tables and chairs. While working, the narrator describes Jack as feeling "like
an archaeologist performing an excavation, examining clues left by a vanished
civilization--Minnesota Jack and the Temple of Goo" (Ch. 12).
But if the reader remains in doubt that the story is set in the state of
Minnesota, we are given an additional clue in the next
chapter, when Jack climbs the bell tower. One the
third landing of the bell tower, before he reaches the summit, Jack stands on a
broken wooden chair that had been patched together with chicken wire and left
under a window. Looking out the window to the north in the "bright October
air," Jack notes that, "on the distant horizon he thought he could see
Minneapolis, just a hint of skyline" (Ch. 13). Minneapolis is
the largest city in Minnesota, which is enough of a clue to tell us Jack is in
the state of Minnesota.