The Talented Clementine, Sara Pennypacker

I started reading this to my 8-year-old cousin last night and had to borrow it to read it all the way through. It might have taken me half an hour, but it was half an hour of trying desperately to muffle my laughs, trying not to wake anyone else in the house. Because Clementine is beyond hilarious. She's mad that her parents named after her a fruit, so she never refers to her 3-year-old brother by his name, only by vegetables, which, she thinks, are the only names worse than hers. Also, she names her cats after bathroom products. Somehow Sara Pennypacker has taken that kid we all pretended we weren't - the one with leaves in their hair and two left feet and zero ability to concentrate in class - and made a hero out of them. Which is pretty freaking fantastic, if you ask me. My cousin thinks so too. He's adopted her speech patterns.

This is the second (and sadly, last) of the Clementine books, which means I'll be picking up the first book at the library today and won't get anything else done until I've read it. I really can't say much more about it, so I've included an excerpt from it. Don't worry, it won't ruin it for you. You should absolutely read it.

"Juggling was a good talent...
"Luckily, I found everything right away. My mom's pocketbook was right on her drawing table, and next to it was half a cup of coffee. The phone was under my bed - probably String Bean left it there, because I'm sure I didn't. Then I found Moisturizer and scooped him up.
"Okay, fine, a kitten isn't the same as a poodle. This is called Making Do.
"Let me tell you, it's pretty hard just holding all those things at once. And before I could toss everything into the air and start talking on the phone, Moisturizer saw a bird outside the window. He jumped out of my arms, and everything else crashed to the floor.
"And then I learned the difference between crashed and smashed: crashed is easier to clean up. Also, I learned that coffee is easier to clean up when you spill it on a new brown rug. You hardly have to touch it at all!"

As far as kids' books go, which I am already quite fond of, this is for sure 24 bottle caps out of, well, 24.

Steph