Customer Reviews

Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm 8 years old and I like the Clarice Bean books. In this book Clarice Bean is upset because her best friend Betty Moody moved to California for her dad's job. Clarice misses her a lot. Other things start to go wrong like a new kid named Clem Hansson is sitting in Betty Moody's seat and Clarice doesn't like her that much. There are some problems with Clarice's house and they need to get it fixed. Clarice's new room is an attic, and she's a little nervous because she doesn't like spiders and there are a lot of them in the attic. My opinion about this book is that it is a very good book. I thought the book was very interesting. I read it in less than two days. I liked it a lot more than Clarice Bean Spells Trouble, and it's about as good as Utterly Me, Clarice Bean. I think a lot of kids would like this book.

My Review of Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now, by Lauren Child
By MJ age 9

I love this book! It was sooooo hard to put it down! This book is the BEST! (You must read the other books in the Clarice Bean series or this one won't make sense!)
Clarice Bean is miserable because Betty Moody has moved very far away. As her house is repaired, Clarice Bean has been e-mailing Betty Moody because Clarice Bean's phone isn't working. To make matters worse, a new kid comes to school and Clarice thinks she is a bully. Her name is Clem, Clem Hansson. Want to know more? Well, I don't want to ruin surprises, do I? =)

I've been reading a chapter of this book each night to my 8 year old daughter...we are on Chapter 8 now. Last night, though, I snuck ahead and read the whole book after my daughter went to bed. I know this is a child's book, but I was so moved by it. Lauren Child captured so many emotions that I remembered having as a child, and some that I had long forgotten. At the last few pages of the book, I found myself crying, so moved by the emotional journey that Clarice Bean had been through, mostly alone (her parents and teachers seem oblivious to her emotional pain during most of the book). This is a wonderful book...I love it and so does my daughter.

I just finished reading this book to my 6 year old daughter. She really enjoyed it though it was a bit over her head. I on the other hand, was "utterly" entranced. I just can't stop thinking about this book. It was incredible on so many levels. It touched on several important themes... loneliness, loss, worry, bullying, moving, incorrect assumptions..... without being at all patronizing. Far from being annoying, I found Clarice Bean's peculiar conversational cadence made the story that much more real... and towards the last few chapters, even poetic. The book is rich and amazing... definitely one to reread.... Kudos to Lauren Child, very well done !!!!!

claims Clarice Bean about her current read, "The Ruby Redfort Survival Handbook: What to do When Your Worst Worry Comes Your Way." And Clarice, third of four children (p 10) "being the second from youngest isn't really anything, is it?" has a lot of worries, so many that she jots them in a "worst worries" notebook (p 7) "because people say things aren't so bad if you make a list." What might a girl like Clarice worry about, things like: (Pp 8, 9, 10, 96, 66) the meaning of life, infinity, change, being bored to nearly utter death, and largish spiders. Ms. Redfort's words of wisdom, (p 11) "REMEMBER-it's the worry you haven't even thought to worry about-that is the worry that should worry you the most." Also contained in the survival handbook, helpful hints, like: (p 19, 28, 35, 104) "A true spy will notice the unnoticeable," "Never eat a polar bear's liver-no matter how hungry you are," "If trouble is around the corner, try walking the other way," and my absolute favorite (in the subsection under How to survive in shark-infested waters), "Whatever you do, do not let them explore you with their teeth."

Fortunately, Clarice's "utterly best friend" Betty Moody shares her fascination with all things Ruby Redfort. Unfortunately, her ubf moves away, leaving her alone with her worries and her tickets for the movie premiere of Run, Ruby, Run, in which she has a small part. Even worse, a new (Swedish) girl arrives at the school, soaking up the attentions of her classmates. With Betty (mostly) incommunicado, Clarice slips into despair, and misinterprets the actions of others, thus piling on additional worries. But when all seems lost, she stumbles upon the clues to a kidnapping, uses what she's learned from RR to help solve the crime, and makes a new friend. The hardcopy version of this book, with its colorful cover and built-in bookmark, would be a great choice for any third to fifth grade worrier, with its refreshingly original variety of fonts, sketches, and predictably-positive-ending story. Also good: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg, and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.

I've been a fan of Laurence Child's picture books since I started working part time at the library, so I was ecstatic when I found out she wrote novels too. I admit my enthusiasm waned a bit when I saw her novels were about Clarice Bean, who was my least favorite character of her stories (I love Hubert Horatio and of course Charlie and Lola), but I wanted something light to read since I've had a bad run with books and Lauren Child has never let me down.

Child let me down, I found myself actually feeling worse as I read.

In fact I wanted to put the book down many times only to find myself unable to as I got sucked more and more into Clarice's world.

Clarice starts off talking about worrying; about change, about infinity, about spiders. But it isn't until the day that the bathroom floor collapses destroying the stove that her worries take on a whole new meaning. Suddenly Clarice is being forced to eat toast all the time, can't watch tv at home (because that was destroyed when the ceiling fell too), her parents are always arguing and may possible get a divorce, and CHANGE may be happening in the form of the family moving. If that's not enough the worry that you least expect happens, and Clarice suddenly finds herself alone with only her Ruby survival guides for company and way too many sleepless nights. Not to mention a new girl called Clem from Sweden arrives making Clarice worry that Karl may possibly get hurt and kicked out of school because he's getting too involved with that no good Clem.

What I loved about this book was that Clarice thought like me, as I read I kept thinking ah I'm not the only one who thinks things like that. What a relief! I also liked how Clarice was constantly trying to understand what was going on around her and how she handled some tough issues and still came off as the young child she is.

The reason I gave this four stars instead of five was because Child rushed the ending a bit, especially the conclusion to the parents constant arguing. And while many unexpected things happened through out the story the ending wasn't so unexpected. Also Child has a unique way of writing that may be off putting to people, her sentences are structured oddly and there was at least one word that she made up, but this was from Clarice's point of view. Once you get used to it, it works, at least it did for me.

There are already many good reviews of the various Clarice Bean books; I don't wish to reinvent the wheel. All that I really want to add is that Lauren Child has that rare gift of being able to write about a child's thoughts with humor and genuine insight. This is much harder than it looks.

This book is about a girl who's best friend says that her mom is left in California for vacation,when really she is at a job interview.But when Betty's mom says yes, Betty's whole family has to move to San Diego. But things don't get better for Clarice Bean.A new Swedish girl comes to her school and kinda' takes the place of Clarice Bean's best friend.I love this book!

My daughter (6 years) loves this book.
She loves all of Lauren Childs books

The condition of the book was excellent, it got it here fast and my sister loved it!!! Thank You Very Much!!!