Clarice Bean That's Me

Clarice Bean That’s Me was written and illustrated by Lauren Child. It was published by Orchard Books in 1999. It is realistic Fiction and is appropriate for grade 3-5.
Clarice Bean is a series by Lauren Child that targets an older audience. Clarice Bean seems to be around 10 or 11 and shares many of the annoyances that most girls her age do. In this story Clarice explains her life. She goes through each member of her family and talks about them. This story is very much written through the mind of a 10 or 11 year old girl. The things she says about her family and neighbors are so funny and to the point that the reader has to laugh. Through her descriptions and thoughts of her family you see the struggles that most families have. Her older brother is at that sullen teenager stage. Her older sister is boy crazy and doesn’t understand Clarice at all, and her younger brother is a nuisance, just like all little brothers are. The best part of this story is the reality of it. All of the characters in the book are much like the people that most children have in their lives. Most kids have a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters. This family manages to work in a very quirky family and I would suspect that most families work in a very similar way.
I loved that this was such a simple book. There wasn’t really a story line, but it explored a lot of the aspects of Clarice’s life. This book would be great to introduce older elementary girls to. It shows them that there are even books written about the lives of girls their age so they must be important. This book could also open up the idea of keeping a diary to girls or boys who need an outlet. The story is set up as almost a diary of Clarice’s thoughts. This is where a whole class lesson could come into play; showing kids one idea of how a diary could work. This is a quirky book about a reasonably normal family.