Clementine Loves Red

The Marx Brothers, as Kids, With a Tart Polish Sense of Humor, Run Around in the Woods

This is a funny, slightly manic tale that should have its own genre description - "Eastern European screwball kids' comedy".

The book's cover tells you all you need to know about the main characters. Mark, Annie and Pudding, (the three siblings at the bottom of the circle), find little girl Macadamia in the woods. Macadamia has lost Clementine. With night coming on and a major thunderstorm threatening the three kids resolve to search for Clementine. Then, Eddie and Freddie, (the two brothers at the top of the circle), decide to follow and conduct their own search. Then Teddy, the local constable's son, decides to take his dog out and conduct his own "major operation". So, we have six kids wandering around the woods at night in the rain, all looking for Clementine. Now add in some responsible adults and some quirky adults and some inept adults, and have them search for Clementine and for the six kids.

It feels a little bit like a farce, with characters entering and leaving stage right, stage center and stage left. There is a tremendous energy to the story-telling, although there are frequent pauses in the action to allow everyone, (including the reader), to catch their breath and reflect on what's going on.

At times the book feels a bit like a parody of an Enid Blyton style kid adventure story. These kids are not the intrepid, omni-competent kids from standard adventure tales. Pudding is whiny and lazy. Mark is a bit of a fuss-budget know-it-all. Teddy has a bit of Inspector Clouseau to him. And so on. The kids make terrible decisions, constantly surprise and scare each other, and cannot stay dry or hold on to their flashlights. The charm, though, is that each kid grows on you as you read and they earn their likeability.

All of this may work because of the author's dry and deadpan funny approach to the whole ridiculous enterprise. There are some very tart throwaway lines and bracing observations. Dialogue is brief, often dizzy, and frequently a bit pointed. There is an underlying honesty regarding how kids really think and how they can swerve between brave and fearful in an eye-blink. The effect is to make the book feel real and goofy at the same time, which is quite an accomplishment.

This book was originally published in Poland in 1970. More and more children's and middle grade books are being translated and published for English speaking audiences and it seems to me that this book is a wonderful example of why that is a very good development. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)