School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-In her second adventure, Clementine is the only untalented student in her third-grade class, with the talent show fast approaching. She hints that her family may be leaving Boston and moving to Egypt on Friday if her father takes the building manager job at the Great Pyramid, but her teacher just laughs. Her friend Margaret offers her tap-dancing lessons, but her improvised beer-cap tap shoes don't work. Her baby brother (variously called by vegetable names) always laughs when she sings like Elvis, but her parents veto the leash she needs to keep him on stage. It's Mrs. Rice, the principal, who finally shows everyone where the child's talents lie. Clementine is a true original, an empathetic human being with the observant eye of a real artist and a quirky, matter-of-fact way of expressing herself. 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, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker, illus. by Marla Frazee, brings back the third-grader that made such a splash in last season's Clementine (in our Best Books citation, PW called her "an eight-year-old whose spirit rivals Ramona and Judy Moody"). Here her teacher's announcement of a school talent show sends the heroine into a tizzy. (Hyperion, $14.99 144p ages 7-10 ISBN 978-0-7868-3870-7; Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
