I am rather late becoming acquainted with Clarice Bean, but it is an experience not to be missed! Clarice is a worrier, and she handles her worries by making a list of them in her Worst Worries notebook. She and her best friend, Betty Moody, are keen fans of 'The Ruby Redfort Survival Handbook'( which is all about how to handle worries) and 'The Ruby Redfort Spy Guide' (which is all about how to be a spy) and they plan their lives around Ruby's advice. One of her dictats is: 'Remember - it's the worry you haven't even thought to worry about - that is the worry that should worry you the most.' And so it happens that when Betty Moody has to tell Clarice that she is moving to San Francisco because her mum has a new job there, Clarice realises that this is the worry she has never thought about. She is shattered, and when Betty leaves, she stops sleeping and finds herself unable to enjoy any of her other friends. Her family's house is falling apart too, and she is afraid they will have to move. This worry does not materialise, but the major re-build that follows causes family tension too. Clarice retreats into her Ruby Redfort books, but when a Swedish girl arrives in school and upsets the balance of the class, Clarice gets the completely wrong end of the stick. It is only at the end that all becomes clear, and she learns that both she and Betty can make new friends while keeping in touch with the old. All this is handled with a lightness of touch, with Clarice's unusual syntax, with lots of variation in type forms and with a humour that contains Clarice's life philosophy. It's fun and serious at the same time, and I can quite see why Clarice Bean is such a popular character. There are many other books in the series.