SuitabookClarice Bean, That’s Me
Lauren Child
- Reading
- Read a few pages aloud while looking closely at the lettering and collage. Pause after the prank or card game to discuss fairness and impact, without assuming the book treats Clarice’s behaviour as either wholly acceptable or wholly wrong.
- Themes
- Family affection beneath teasing: Clarice describes relatives’ habits and mishaps in sharply comic terms, while the family is also shown gathering in affectionate, comfortable positions. The book appears to balance irreverent commentary with underlying affection rather than presenting family criticism as the whole relationship.
- Finding personal space: Clarice is connected with a wish for her own space and peace and quiet within a busy household. The book gives a child’s perspective on not knowing one’s position in a family and wanting room to oneself.
- Visual storytelling and voice: Different typefaces, sizes and page arrangements represent characters’ voices, ages and emotional qualities. The presentation treats words as part of the illustration, inviting readers to interpret appearance as well as sentence meaning.
- Worth knowing
- Clarice’s humour includes dumping spaghetti on her younger brother’s head, imagining another messy prank, commenting on siblings’ interests and cheating at cards with her grandfather, whose eyesight is poor.