Arthur Bean is a genius, it's just that no one else realises this quite yet. He's going to be a world-famous author, even if he's an outcast who is only confident whilst writing. What he writes is pretty funny, but it gets him into trouble, too with his English teacher; the editor of the school newspaper; the beautiful girl in his class, Kennedy; and with his number one nemesis, Robbie Zack. Arthur is often too honest for his own good except for when he's handing in stories based a little too closely on famous novels.