THE TALENTED CLEMENTINE

What to do when all the third- and fourth-graders are putting on a talent show but you don’t have a talent? That’s Clementine’s dilemma, and her mechanisms for escaping the talent show escalate into hilarity. Pennypacker once again demonstrates her keen insights into the third-grade mind with Clementine’s priceless observations of the world around her: “At journal writing I did my idea. When I was done writing, I curled my hand over my sentence as if it were too private to share. Which is how you get a teacher to come and look at it.” Clementine’s quest for a talent includes gluing beer-bottle caps to the bottoms of her sneakers; juggling her mother’s pocketbook, half-full coffee cup and her kitten, Moisturizer; and leashing her little brother as a prop. Even as Clementine’s antics escalate, the narrative avoids the pitfall of deteriorating into slapstick with the constant reminders of her essential humanity. Every kid will understand her desperate desire not to look like a fool in front of her classmates, and they will find her very talented solution—achieved with a little help from her principal—enormously satisfying. (Fiction. 7-10)