Always, Clementine

Carlie Sorosiak's Always, Clementine is a warm, funny adventure for 9 year olds told as the letters a genius mouse writes to her best friend, a chimpanzee.

What happens

Clementine was born in a science lab. The researchers were trying to make animals cleverer by changing their DNA, and out of twelve mice she's the only one it really worked on. She knows astrophysics, she can recite thousands of digits of pi and she's fond of the odd bit of Latin. She also really, REALLY loves brussels sprouts.

At night she picks the lock of her cage and goes exploring. That's how she meets Rosie, a chimp in a cage of her own. Rosie teaches her finger-words in sign language and Clementine lends her a thinking cap (a pom-pom off someone's jumper). It's the sweetest unlikely friendship.

Then one night a very nervous young lab worker in a mask sneaks in and takes two mice. One of them is Clementine. He leaves them in the mailbox of a TV gardener with a note on a gum wrapper asking someone to protect them, and all Clementine can think about is getting back to Rosie.

Every chapter is a letter she writes in her head. Each one begins "Dear Rosie" and ends "Always, Clementine". Reading it is like being inside her very busy brain. She's brilliant at maths, puzzled by people and hugely optimistic. She'll be halfway through something serious and then stop to wonder whether she even has handwriting.

The humans are great fun too. There's Gus, a boy with taped-up glasses and bright orange binoculars, and Pop, the gardening presenter he's come to stay with for the month, whose pockets are full of plant cuttings. The other mouse doesn't say much beyond "huh", but he's very sweet (and very easily frightened).

It's worth saying that this is a story about animal testing. There are rabbits and a beagle in the lab as well, and it slowly dawns on Clementine that the young man in the mask was trying to save her life. Nothing is graphic. Still, a child who gets upset about animals kept in cages might find the lab parts sad. For a reader who cares about animals and fairness, it's a gentle way into some big questions.

What to read next

If they fall for an animal narrator who sees the human world a bit differently, I, Cosmo should be next on the list. It's by the same author, and this time the narrator is an old golden retriever who has been made to dress up as a turtle for Halloween.