Clarice Bean, Smile

Readers may know the Clarice Bean picture books, but this one of the stories about Clarice for older children, best for aged around 8. Clarice is a wonderful day-dreamy girl who has been procrastinating ALL summer holidays about her school project on endangered things. Now school is back and she has to cram it into a tiny amount of time and she still doesn’t know what to focus on. And that’s not the only problem, it seems like not only the whole world but her whole family needs her help. Plus her best friend Betty Moody has moved to America! So Clarice does what Clarice can, including applying for a job on behalf of her stressed-out dad complete with quotes from her favourite fictional character Ruby Redfort. Ruby Redfort was once a fictional book series that only existed in Clarice Bean, and then author Lauren Child wrote them. So if children enjoy this book they might later (10 plus) love to get into the whole series starting with Ruby Redfort: Look into My Eyes. The book has short chapters and lots of lovely illustrations including all the different types of smile you might give (11 in all, these are pages to return to!). It all adds up to a most charming, funny, engaging story.