Library & Literary Miscellany

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. Illus. by Marla Frazee (2006).

Quite a bit can happen in a week. Just ask third grader, Clementine, who is having not so good of a week. For Clementine, the road to the principal’s office or to her parents’ frustration is paved with her good intentions. Frequently, Clementine tries to fix problems that she encounters with her humorous, one-of-a-kind, logical (albeit sometimes dead-wrong ) solutions.

Pennypacker packs her work with really-could-have-happened-in-the-life-of-a-third-grader problems that Clementine must fix–Clementine “helps” her friend remove the glue from her hair by cutting off her friend’s hair and then coloring it with permanent markers (all in the name of being a good friend), she makes sundry trips to the principal’s office for supposedly not paying attention or other incomprehensible (to Clementine’s mind) reason, and she assists her building supervisor father in his efforts to win the Great Pigeon War.

Clementine’s mind and body prefer constant action, moving so fast that others she encounters find it difficult to keep up but that readers will find delightful. Her theory is that she is allergic to sitting still. She’s constantly being told that she needs to pay attention, but, to her mind, she is paying attention and everyone else’s mind is simply moving too slow. Clementine says, “Spectacularful ideas are always sproinging up in my brain.”

Her spectacularful suggestions for winning the Great Pigeon War against the pigeon’s mess include charging the pigeons for rent or putting diapers on them. Despite Clementine’s best efforts to fix her own and others’ problems, it seems that the world’s rules aren’t quite that logical.

All of her “fixes” gone awry combine with some snippets of conversation she overhears to make Clementine believe that her parents are planning to rid themselves of her since she is the “hard” kid in the family and that her little brother is the “easy” kid (incidentally, Clementine has penchant for calling her brother by vegetable names that she has collected for him, since the only thing worse than being named a fruit is to be named a vegetable such as Spinach, Broccoli, Radish, Rutabaga, Turnip, Zucchini, Lima Bean, Pea Pod, or Celery).

Fortunately for Clementine, her wit and indomitable spirit cause her to persevere until things better. She learns how very special and appreciated she is, even if her fixes do not always pan out. By book’s end, Clementine’s friendships are mended, she is reassured of her parents’ love, and readers are left hoping that stories of other weeks of the never dull Clementine’s life will be forthcoming (see The Talented Clementine for more fruity fun).

In addition to Pennypacker’s charming narration, Frazee’s expressive pen-and-ink drawings capture Clementine’s mercurial emotions and complement both the humorous and poignant vignettes. Clementine is altogether darling, and stories of her life will be felicitous additions to any beginning chapter-book collection.

From the book:

…and nobody could think of anything to do except the regular thing, which is: send me to the principal’s office

See what I mean? Me—paying attention; everybody else—not.

There is a look they teach a person to make in principal school that is not very nice

But I didn’t spin him again, because he throws up on the second ride and somebody has to clean it up which is N-O-T, not me. This is called Being Responsible.

She scrubbed so hard she probably made a hole right through my head skin and my head bone, and now everybody can see right into my brains and I’d better not do any more cartwheels.

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Daisy Kutter: The Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi

In just four chapters, Kibuishi’s Daisy Kutter: the Last Train unites the western and science fiction genres. Saloons, general stores, outlaws, and sheriffs co-exist with security guard robots, holograms, and remote-controlled heavy artillery machines.

Chapter one introduces us to the intrepid Daisy Kutter whose attempts to go straight have nearly driven her crazy–or at least driven her to the point of plastering everything in her store with darts from one of her store’s dart guns. Daisy’s prospects perk up somewhat when learns of poker night at the nearby saloon. Although she has purportedly given up gunslinging, she’s still game for a bit of Texas Hold’ em. Unfortunately, she literally bets the farm (in this case store) in a round where the cards up her sleeve aren’t quite ace enough to match the cards her opponent (aka the book’s bad guy) has up his sleeve.

Chapter two finds Daisy pondering her losses; the result of all this thinking is that she finds herself agreeing to a mysterious offer to pull off one last job to get her store back. She also has a row with her old gunslinging, train-robbing partner, Tom, who is now the town sheriff. Their relationship is full of love and hate–some days it’s the former, some days it’s the latter. In Daisy’s mind, Tom has turned into a real square (a fact made literal when one considers his square face in the illustrations), but they still find themselves drawn to each other and to adventure.

Chapter three displays Daisy planning and implementing the job. Daisy explains to her new human and robot partners, “A simple plan is best. You can count on it getting complicated in the end.” The train heist provides Kibuishi with the opportunity to showcase Daisy’s on-the-job performance prowess while simultaneously wowing us with the way he imbues static images with cinematic effect. Daisy moves with the moving train, and, the plot moves too as the best-laid-plan goes awry.

Chapter four shows the aftermath of the train robbery and Daisy slinging her way to a some sort of resolution. Overall, two aspects of the book standout: the movie-like feel of the train robbery sequence and Daisy’s characterization.

Daisy’s gruff exterior, her sorely in need of anger-management temperament, her quick draw, her poker prowess—these all speak typical western hero. But the emotion written across her face, the alternating shoulder slump and pride in bearing, the complicated relationships, the nuances of her character—these all move her beyond stereotypes. Daisy, like so many others before her, is trying to find her place in the world and trying to decide whether that place is inside of or outside of the law. She’s not black or white.  Speaking of black and white, Kibuishi employs a masterful range of black, grey, and white hues throughout the novel’s many panels.

After Daisy’s story closes (although it doesn’t really close and there’s definitely room for many a sequel), Kibuishi provides additional chapters where he illuminates his story and character creation process. He includes many earlier sketches of Daisy that show her overall evolution as a character along with a “how it’s done” series of sketches that illuminate the graphic novel creation process as a whole.

In the extra material, Kibuishi even admits that drawing is not his favorite part of the creative process. Fortunately for use readers, he must grit his teeth and bear it, and he comes up with products like Daisy Kutter: The Last Train—a graphic novel that will have widespread appeal across the western, science fiction, and graphic novel audiences.

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