Read Clementine free in the Little Reads app.
Sara Pennypacker's Clementine is a laugh-out-loud story for 6 year olds about a third grader whose helping keeps landing her in trouble with Principal Rice.
Clementine is eight. She notices EVERYTHING. The lunch lady kissing the janitor in his car. An egg stain on the art teacher's scarf that looks exactly like a pelican. And yet every single teacher tells her to pay attention.
On Monday her friend Margaret from upstairs cuts a chunk out of her own hair in the school toilets. Clementine helps by evening it up. Then evening it up again. By the time the art teacher walks in, there isn't much hair left to even.
That's how her whole week goes. Every idea feels brilliant in her head (and some of them really are). Then it goes wrong in a way that seems very unfair to her.
Being inside Clementine's head is such a treat. She's funny without ever trying to be. She calls her little brother a different vegetable every time, Spinach, Radish, Turnip, because she got stuck with a fruit name and he didn't. And her "Okay, fine" whenever she has to own up to something is just perfect.
Do you know a child who's always being told to concentrate when they're concentrating very hard on something else? They'll feel very understood here.
There's real feeling under the jokes too. Margaret's mum says every family with two kids has an easy one and a hard one, and Clementine works out which one she must be. Later she overhears her parents whispering and wonders if they'd like to swap her for an easier child. She also misses her cat, Polka Dottie, who died before the story starts. These bits are gentle, but they might tug at a sensitive reader.
Her mum and dad are lovely. Her dad manages their apartment building and is fighting what he calls the Great Pigeon War, and Clementine is his best ideas person. Her mum tells her she already is an artist, which is a really sweet moment.
If they fall for her, The Talented Clementine has her in a panic about a school talent show, because she's quite sure she hasn't got a single talent.
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