When a stray dog follows Clarice Bean home, she decides it’s up to her to take care of him. Now all she has to do is figure out how to keep him a secret from the rest of the family . . .
Nothing ever happens except for sometimes. And only on rare-ish occasions, which is hardly ever.
It is sweltering hot, and Clarice Bean is bored, and boredom can lead to trouble, and trouble can lead to people getting very mad at you. Not good when the person who’s mad at you is your sister and she has the thing you want most of all: a pair of roller skates.
How can Clarice make things right when there’s this dog who won’t stop following her around? Doesn’t he have a home of his own to go to? She's told him to scram, but he just won’t listen. Find out in this story from the inimitable Lauren Child of falling out with a sister, falling in with a dog, and doing everything wrong, only to find you’ve got everything right.---from the publisher
176 pages 978-1536231120 Ages 7-11
Keywords: animal rescue, dogs, pets, family life, humor, secrets, fun, 7 year old, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, part of a series
*****
Clarice Bean Tuesday is 12, second youngest in an extended family that comprises her granddad, and her grandmother, her dad, her mother, her 16-year old brother Kurt, her 14 year old sister Marcie and her younger brother Minal Cricket Tuesday who is 5. As with many larger families, life is often chaotic but on this particular day Clarice is feeling bored because nothing ever happens except for sometimes. And only on rare-ish occasions, which is hardly ever. There are times when even I can’t turn the nothing into more than it is. But there was one day in the holidays that began as a nothing day and then everything happened. Absolutely nearly everything.
Cranky and bored because it is the summer holidays and her brothers and sister are annoying, her best friend Betty Moody is away, and Robert Grainger, her weird neighbour is boasting that he is looking after a rabbit. Everyone seems to be having more fun than she is. That is, until she finds that a puppy has followed her home and will not ‘scram’. Knowing that when her parents return from the wedding, they will only make her try to find its owner, Clarice and her siblings all work together to look after the dog and hide it from them.
Written in Clarice's 12 year-old voice, this is a series from the author of Charlie and Lola, that has been around for over 20 years but with intermittent new releases, remains as popular as ever with younger newly independent readers. They will relate to the everyday events that Child skillfully makes entertaining and using lots of the formatting devices that support young readers to tackle longer reads, this new release could see the resurgence of the series amongst a new generation of readers.
Recommended by: Barbara Braxton, Teacher Librarian, New South Wales AUSTRALIA
See more of her recommendations:
500 Hats https://500hats.edublogs.org/
The Bottom Shelf https://thebottomshelf.edublogs.org/
Storybook Cushions https:// bit.ly/storybook_cushions
