Reviewed by Josh

This is a fine little tale. The narrator, who's name is Clare, like the author, goes on the internet to find a pen-pal to write e-mail to. She finds one, a Jewish girl from England named Clara. They become 'Internet friends' and write back and forth for a while. One day, a problem results that Clare must resolve.

This story is only 329 words long, so that's basically the whole story right there. The author tells us she won't bore us with everything they talked about, so that considerably shortens the whole thing right off the bat. Maybe a tale of all that they talked about, with a little creative writing thrown in to make it more exciting thrown in, would be more interesting.

Clare Manson, 9, shows promise in everything she does. Having reviewed another one of her stories, "The Monster" I am continually struck by how such a young author can have such a fine grasp of paragraph structure, language, and all that yada-yada.

But enough of that. Ms. Manson is a very good writer, for her age, and this story is good, considering the author's age again. It's very hard to be critical of this story, but if I have to be critical, then I will.

I suggest that Clare work on character development, and building up to a final climax, and basically just writing longer stories. As with when I reviewed "The Monster" I was disappointed when the ending came. I wanted to read more! But, the lack of character development and a long, drawn out plot, seems to be a nice thing. Sometimes you just have to kick back with a simple, unburdened little tale, and just read, instead of trying to analyze and dissect everything. Which is exactly what I've done here, but... Oh well.

So, readers, when reading this story, remember that Clare Manson is only 9, and for that, she shows great talent, and at the same time, room to improve. Room for improvement is very good, of course. It shows that this author will do wonderful things in the future.