Clementine

The week starts with a haircut disaster: Margaret gets glue in her hair, and Clementine is only too happy to help with a pair of scissors. From there things snowball, involving markers, pigeons on the apartment building where her father is the manager, and a growing worry that the grown-ups have simply run out of patience with her. Clementine also gives her little brother a different vegetable name every time she mentions him, a running joke that children adore.

Pennypacker writes in Clementine's own voice, breathless, logical in its own way and full of sudden insights. Beneath the comedy is something gentle and true: a child who worries that being different means being bad, and parents who love her exactly as she is. The scenes with her artist mother and her patient father are especially warm.

Marla Frazee's lively line drawings add to the fun. Some readers may find Clementine's misbehaviour exasperating, but most will see themselves in her. A great first chapter book to read together. It also opens up easy conversations with children about feeling misunderstood at school and at home. About 160 pages in the Hyperion paperback.