Always, Clementine

LoveReading4Kids Says

Clementine is a very special mouse. Genetically modified in a laboratory, she is super smart, able to solve complex mathematical equations and to understand human speech. There’s even more to Clementine though; freed from the lab by a sympathetic research assistant and dropped into a mailbox, she describes her thoughts and adventures in a series of imaginary letters to her friend, fellow lab inmate Rosie, a gentle and desperately sad chimpanzee.

The letters reveal Clementine to be caring, compassionate and wise. Thanks to her new human friends, eleven-year-old Gus and his grandfather Pop, who discover Clementine and her fellow lab mouse Hamlet, Clementine is offered a chance to escape the lab forever, and maybe save Rosie too. It all depends on her ability to win the respect and love of the general public, the stage for this a chess tournament broadcast on Pop’s TV show.

Carlie Sorosiak explores a wealth of themes in her story, the cruel treatment of animals of course, as well as the nature of intelligence, and the power of friendship and love; she fills it too with humour and suspense, all built on genuine emotions. It’s impossible not to be moved by Clementine’s story, and this little mouse is a truly original and memorable literary heroine.

Andrea Reece

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