Clementine in the City

 By Jesse Hartland

I have mixed feelings about this one.  My daughter begged me to renew it because she loves it so much.  It's written with printed text and hand writing, and the pages are sometimes one big picture and sometimes a collage of little pictures.  It's the story of a dog who goes to the city to get away from the boring suburbs.

 I don't really care for the story so much, but I do like how the character, Clementine, introduces herself on the fourth page or so.  I think the pacing is good, and the layout is great.  There's a new idea every two pages, which works well for a young kid's attention span.  The art is pretty decent, too.

The ending is particularly dull, though.  I think it would have been fine if it was just the story of the dog in the city meeting people and living, and maybe even working terrible jobs.  Instead, at the last minute they really tried to have a climax and some denouement.  It worked out fine, but it could have been better if it had been left more abstract and slice-of-life.