Synopsis: The moment they saw each other, Bean and Ivy knew they wouldn’t be friends. But when Bean plays a joke on her sister, Nancy, and has to hide quickly, Ivy comes to the rescue, proving that sometimes the best of friends are people never meant to like each other. Vibrant characters and lots of humor make this a charming and addictive introduction to Ivy and Bean.
Release Date: 6th May 2007
Genres: Middle Grade, Friendship, Imagination, Magic, Humour, Contemporary, Children’s Books
Pages: 120
Review: Ivy and Bean are both being pressured by their mothers to be friends but don’t have any interest in doing so. They seem so different to each other that they couldn’t imagine a reason they would get on at all. What was good about this storyline was that in time they naturally found each other to be great company and that they had more in common than they thought and that they became best friends instantly.
Bean was a really rotten kid though so was her sister Nancy, between the two of them it made it hard to read. There was so much bad behaviour within this book. Bean stole things that didn’t belong to her, she trespassed even when asked to stop, she continuously lied, she bullied her sister immensely, though her sister did some bullying right back and Bean did even more horrible things than that. There was so many things wrong with the way this character was written which is such a shame she had to be so awful.
Ivy on the other hand was quite adorable, though she had a mind of her own to do some tricks with her magic it wasn’t as intentional as Bean was about it. Ivy didn’t have anyone to play with and just wanted to play pretend as a witch and was learning all she could to do so.
I liked their friendship and I liked the potential this story had to be a really great book, unfortunately all the bad stuff over powered the good and it did ruin a lot of the story for me, which is a shame as I thought it’d be just a cute story on two opposite best friends.
About Author: Annie grew up in Northern California, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, with a degree in Medieval History. Unable to find a job in the middle ages, she decided upon a career as an editor, eventually landing at Chronicle Books in San Francisco, where she was in charge of “all the books that nobody in their right mind would publish.” After earning an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Mills College, Annie wrote (as Ann Fiery) a number of books for grown-ups about such diverse subjects as fortune-telling (she can read palms!), urban legends (there are no alligators in the sewer!), and opera (she knows what they’re singing about!). In 2003, Annie grew weary of grown-ups, and began to write for kids, which she found to be way more fun
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