Always, Clementine

Clementine is a lab mouse, but not a run-of-the-mill mouse. She has been treated with something to make her much more intelligent. She escapes from her cage often and makes friends with a chimpanzee, Rosie, in the lab. But a man takes Clementine and another mouse that looks exactly like Clementine and takes them to a mailbox where he leaves them with a note. A boy, Gus, finds them, and he and his grandfather, realizing they are not ordinary mice, hide them. In order to save them from the lab people, they teach Clementine to play chess, so she can demonstrate her high intelligence.

Author Carlie Sorosiak has Clementine tell her story in a series of letters she writes in her mind to Rosie, letters she hopes to deliver in person someday. The writing is fine and the story is compelling and filled with tension. One must suspend disbelief more than in other books by this author. This book will probably be most enjoyed by younger middle-grade readers (third and fourth graders). The cast of characters is fun and quite believable. It is an engaging story.