ALWAYS, CLEMENTINE by Carlie Sorosiak

 

Clementine is a lab mouse. All she has ever known is her cage and a maze. She is part of a research study on the intelligence of mice. Clementine is one of the stars of the research. She has knowledge of over fifty subjects. In addition to doing her lab mouse services, she has discovered a friend in a nearby cage. Rosie, a chimpanzee also being researched, has become Clementine's best friend.

Able to pick the lock on her cage, Clementine escapes each night and visits Rosie. She loves curling up in Rosie's hand and being stroked on the head by the kind and gentle chimp. The two form a friendship that allows them to tolerate the lonely lab and the not very kind researchers who insist on picking Clementine up by the tail.

One night a lab assistant named Felix grabs Clementine and another mouse named Hamlet and takes them out of the lab. He knows he could be fired, but he is determined to save at least these two little mice from the researchers. He deposits the two mice in a mailbox along with a note asking whoever finds them to protect them and keep them from being sent back to the lab.

While huddling in the mailbox, Clementine decides to "write" a letter to Rosie. She composes the letter in her mind knowing that if she ever sees Rosie again, she will be able to remember the events of her escape and share them with her friend. 

Clementine and Hamlet are rescued from the mailbox by a young boy spending the summer with his grandfather. What follows is an amazing adventure that Clementine relates in further letters to Rosie. 

Author Carlie Sorosiak takes readers on a roller coaster of an adventure as the two mice meet humans much kinder and understanding than the researchers from the lab. The mice amaze the humans with their intelligence and easily convince them they are mice who should never be returned to a lab where their talents could result in their demise. ALWAYS, CLEMENTINE is perfect for animal lovers looking for a heartwarming tail (tale).