Clarice Bean Spells Trouble

[Amy]

Clarice Bean Spells Trouble by Lauren Child

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Clarice Bean focuses on definitions and spelling, showing a subtle way of teaching children Literacy. The vocabulary in the book is rather extensive; however when there is a word of this nature the meaning is provided, thus showing a learning intention of the book. As stated the vocabulary is extensive thus the book would be aimed for Key Stage Two, or perhaps those over the age of eight.

The style of the book is appealing to children due to the conversational format, and the graphics throughout whether this is pictorial or through font and size of words. This is very engaging and emphasises specific points of the book. Additionally, as the book is told from the point of view of a child, some childlike language is also utilised, for example thingummy bobs. My particular favourite graphics in the book are the words that are shaped like the object they describe, for example a snake on page 127.

The book is about a girl who is always in trouble, and the preoccupation of spelling within school and spelling bees, however Clarice does not see the importance of this at all. Ironically the end of the book shows the importance of spelling through being able to spell a word and her friend unable too as Karl vandalised school property through graffiti and writing the word rhinoceros. However, Clarice does take the blame for her friend. Clarice dislikes school but follows her dream of becoming an actress through the school play (although she eventually gets banned from taking part due to the graffiti) and attending a drama workshop. Clarice idealises Ruby Redfort and many times in the book there are descriptions of certain episodes of her heroine. Ultimately the book concludes with Clarice finding herself as an extra in a Ruby Redfort film.

A massive positive to the book is the format and style of the book, which is described above. The inclusion of asterisks to provide extra information shows creativity and elaboration. Additionally, the book does portray the moral that actions have consequences, thus displaying a valuable lesson. However when reading the book I did find that there were lots of characters and sometimes I had to flick back to remind myself who the characters were and where they stemmed from. I think if the Ruby Redfort extracts were in a different font or something to make them stand out, it would be less confusing as sometimes it went from a situation with Clarice in one paragraph and then straight into one about Ruby. Thus for clarification purposes this is a slight hindrance when reading the book.

The nature of spelling, and the integral part spellings and meanings play within this book shows how useful this book could be within the classroom. As I stated previously the visual aspect to the book was pleasing on the eye, and I would suggest children to be encouraged to write this way too. As part of their writing they could incorporate writing a description of an object in the shape of this object. Also the use of font, size and graphics to emphasise and exaggerate words could also be a writing task that children could fulfil. Furthermore, the book showed Clarice writing sentences by only utilising words with same beginning letter, again this could be an activity given to children. This also enables children to use a dictionary and extend their vocabulary.




View all my reviews