The Talented Clementine

Sara Pennypacker; Marla Frazee (Illustrator)

Though I work in a bookstore, I discovered 1 2 3 when my brother gave it to my one-year-old daughter with the intention of helping her learn to count. At first glance I thought it was a nice counting book with beautiful illustrations. Once we read it a couple times, though, I began to notice details I had missed that made reading this book so much more than reciting numbers.

Each page represents a number and also offers delightful hidden surprises. The number six, for example, stars Hansel and Gretel and six shiny sweets, six lollipops outside the witch’s house, six mushrooms in the yard, six white birds, and six cats sulking about. Every page is a scavenger hunt with tons of little details tucked into the nooks and crannies of the illustrations that reinforce that page’s number. Children (and their parents) will enjoy recognizing characters they know well, with spreads depicting scenes from fairy tales from Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk to The Red Shoes and Little Red Riding Hood. There are often characters from other stories slipped into the background, foreshadowing their dedicated page to come. If you look out the window of the Gingerbread Man’s kitchen, for example, you will see Jack’s beanstalk off in the distance and the Ugly Duckling’s pond on the horizon.

This is one counting book I won’t mind reading over and over because I find new details each time we read it. My daughter, at one, is captivated by the illustrations. She loves pointing out the different animals and details. I can only imagine that as she gets older, she will love the treasure-hunt aspects this book offers even more than I do. I think it will help make counting and learning math a lot of fun for her!

Format

Hardcover

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CRITICS HAVE SAID

Whether shopping for new shoes with her mother, saving the talent show, or dining with her parents at the Ritz-no-crackers restaurant, she is laugh-out-loud funny. Frazee’s line drawings are plentiful and just right. Libraries will need multiple copies of this one, because early chapter-book readers will jump at the chance to spend another eventful week with Clementine.–Mary Jean Smith, School Library Journal

Clementine’s everyday dilemmas make this a novel that most kids will easily identify with, and as it is written from a first-person perspective, Clementine’s dry humor and unusual outlook make this an especially entertaining school story.–Children

IF YOU LOVE THIS BOOK, THEN TRY:

Cleary, Beverly. Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Morrow, 1981. ISBN-13: 978-0380709564

Duffey, Betsy. Spotlight on Cody. Viking, 1998. ISBN-13: 978-0141309873

Kline, Suzy. What’s the Matter with Herbie Jones? Putnam, 1987. (And others in the Herbie Jones series.) ISBN-13: 978-0698119420

McDonald, Megan. Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor Is In!Candlewick, 2004. (And others in the Judy Moody series.) ISBN-13: 978-0439743839

McDonald, Megan. Stink!: The Incredible Shrinking Kid. Candlewick, 2005. (And others in the Stink series.) ISBN-13: 978-0744593716

Park, Barbara. Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. Random House, 1993. (And others in the Junie B. Jones series.) ISBN-13: 978-0375841569