Clarice Bean Spells Trouble (review)

The protagonist of picture books such as Utterly Me, Clarice Bean (BCCB 11/03) relates her further adventures with class troublemaker Karl Wrenbury and dictatorial teacher Mrs. Wilberton, interspersed with pensive commentary on the televised exploits of her idol, the gallant secret agent Ruby Redfort. As usual, Clarice Bean and Karl seem constantly in trouble in Mrs. Wilberton's class, but it's a low-key, everyday kind of trouble—until Karl discovers his absent father's phone number in his mother's address book and decides it's time to go live with him. Karl's subsequent rejection by his father, added to Mrs. Wilberton's constant put-downs, propels him into a descending spiral that ends in school vandalism (of which he is not yet pegged as the culprit) and a classroom screaming fit. Clarice Bean, who has been cramming for the upcoming spelling bee, knows that there's only one person who hates Mrs. Wilberton enough to spray-paint "quite a very rude thing" about her on a school wall and who cannot spell the word "rhinoceros." Though to do so ruins her chance to play the coveted part of Liesl in the class production of The Sound of Music, Clarice Bean does Ruby Redfort proud and takes the blame for her friend's stupid decision, thus saving him from expulsion. Told in typically energetic Clarice Bean style with many italicized phrases, rambling tangents, and scribbled black-and-white illustrations, this short novel fleshes out the protagonist as a character and deals with a serious story in a light-hearted, child-focused style. The final pages keep the tone buoyant (though the action is at times exaggeratedly frenetic), as Clarice Bean, barred from school for several days, instead finds herself working as an extra in the new Ruby Redfort movie. A step up in reading level and story development from the equally exuberant Junie B. Jones books, this multifaceted romp is a sure hit.