She's cute - but she's just not Lola! (My Uncle Is a Hunkle, Says Clarice Bean - Lauren Child)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	My Uncle Is a Hunkle, Says Clarice Bean - Lauren Child
Date:	27/10/09 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun book for young children

Disadvantages: Some pages are a bit too busy

My daughters are big fans of the Charlie and Lola books written by Lauren Charles, so when we saw a book about another character of hers - Clarice Bean - we decided that it would be a good one to add to our library selection. From the picture on the front cover you can predict that there are likely to be many similarities between this book and the Charlie and Lola ones, not least because Clarice Bean looks very much like a slightly older version of Lola.

Clarice Bean lives with her mum and dad, her older brother Kurt who likes to spend all day in bed, her older sister Marcie who is always on the phone to her friends, her dithery old granddad and her younger brother, Minal Cricket, who is a bit of a handful! In this story Mum is called away to look after Uncle Ernie who has had an accident at work and Dad is going away on business so there is no one to look after the rest of the family except for Uncle Ted. Clarice Bean thinks he is a hunkle(whatever that might be) but Mum seems to think that he is just a big kid himself, but as there is no one else she will have to trust him!

Everything seems to be going well until Minal lets the class guinea pig (that Clarice is looking after) loose. Grandad wanders off to watch next door's television and Minal gets his head stuck in some railings. As Uncle Ted is a firefighter, he calls all his crew to come and help free his nephew, and it is at that point that mum returns - to a great deal of chaos! Before he goes home Uncle Ted has to admit that babysitting is the hardest job ever!

This is a very enjoyable and amusing story which had both my daughters chuckling as we read it together. Also all of the pages are very busy and interesting laid out, in ways that are very similar to the Charlie and Lola books. For example, there is not much text on any page but often where it is, it is set out in unusual ways. For example the some of the words twirl and swirl all over the page, they get bigger and smaller and sometimes they form the shape of the things they are describing! This does help in making the book fun to read although at times it can be a bit distracting especially for a beginner reader. I do think that on some pages the variation in the text layout is somewhat overdone.

I could say the same about some of the illustrations too. There are all the usual Lauren Child devices that we recognise from Charlie and Lola such as a mixture of photos and sketches, and the use of bold and bright contrasting patterns. On many pages this is very effective and attractive but there are some pages where there is so much going on that it just makes you feel tired! This is a shame because it was this variation in illustration that we enjoyed so much with Charlie and Lola.

Clarice Bean could be a great character too but in this book she does not seem to have much personality. She literally tells the story to the reader but without much comment so she does not seem to have much substance to her. I think we have been spoilt by the wonderful personality of Lola, and therefore expect other Lauren Child characters to match up! Clarice Bean is definitely not so cute although I am sure that she could be!

I'm sure that had we read this book before having read any of the Charlie and Lola ones, I would have been much more favourable. But when you read different books by the same author you can't help but compare, especially when the books seem to have been written in the same way. However, what works well for Charlie and Lola just seems a bit overdone in this Clarice Bean book although I can't speak for the others.

Having said this though it is not a bad book. It's just my grown up view being a bit critical and as far as my daughters are concerned, they loved it which is why I am awarding the three stars.

The book is currently available on Amazon for £4.98.

Summary: an enjoyable book