Friday Memes: Completely Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

Completely Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. Illustrated by Marla Frazee. 180 p. Disney/ Hyperion, March 3, 2015. 97814231583.

Publisher synopsis: Summer is coming, and Clementine is not ready. She is not ready to start speaking to her father again, because she's still mad at him for eating meat. Instead, she has to express her sadness by giving him drawings of animals she knows would not want to be somebody's dinner.

Then there is the new baby on the way. Clementine's mom sure doesn't seem ready. She's suddenly crazy about cleaning (Dad says she is nesting), but she doesn't even have a name picked out yet. Clementine just hopes the baby won't be a dud.

What Clementine really isn't ready for is saying good-bye to her third grade teacher. She knows Mr. D'Matz is going to tell her all kinds of things that aren't true. Everything else may be changing around her, but that doesn't mean that Clementine has.

But which is worse, saying good-bye, or not saying good-bye?

First line(s): As soon as I woke up Monday morning, I flopped onto the floor with my drawing pad. I drew a cow with a sagging-down mouth and rivers of tears flowing from her eyes.

Page 56: "I don't think so, Margaret," I said. Then I held one of the shoes against my left forearm and measured it. "The heel is two inches high," I told Margaret.
     "How do you know that?" she asked.
     "Because it fits between Betelgeuse and Alula Borealis, which are exactly two inches apart." I held the show up against my arm again to show her. "Well, plus my fingernail. Two inches and a fingernail. Are they fard to walk in?
     "Hold on, hold on, Margaret said. "You've named your freckles?

I fell completely in love with Clementine from the moment Judy Freeman read from the first chapter of Clementine at her Winners Workshop back in 2006. That voice! Perfect! The spot art! Also perfect, especially the way it starts before the book even starts. It compliments the hysterical text in every way. Each installment since the first has maintained its freshness while allowing Clementine to grow. I am so happy this is out and so sad that it's the last Clementine book.