Remember the Ivy & Beans books by Annie Barrows that my daughter loved when she was younger? We stopped reading at Book 6, but there are 12 books in the series right now. And in other exciting news, Ivy & Bean are coming to NETFLIX.
The films star Jane Lynch, Nia Vardalos, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Keslee Blalock and Madison Skye Validum as the beloved duo Ivy and Bean. Here’s the trailer:
I’m pretty excited. I might just have to watch.
Congratulations goes out to J. Aday Kennedy, winner of a copy of Ivy & Bean What’s the Big Idea? I’ll email J. Aday tomorrow to get her mailing address.
Thanks to all who participated in the giveaway. I’ll be posting another giveaway in a few moments, so be on the lookout for it.
It’s the Science Fair, and the second grade is all over it! Some kids are making man-eating robots. Some kids are holding their breath for a very, very long time. Some kids are doing interesting things with vacuum cleaners. The theme, obviously, is global warming. But what should Ivy and Bean do? Something involving explosions? Or ropes? Something with ice cubes? Or maybe . . . maybe something different.
Annie Barrows is the author of many books for adults, including the bestselling The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but Ivy and Bean is her first series for kids. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters.
Sophie Blackall is an Australian illustrator whose previous books include Ruby’s Wish and Meet Wild Boars. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Chronicle Books has developed some activity ideas inspired by What’s The Big Idea. Though they were designed for bookstores and libraries, readers may have fun doing these activities with their own kids too.
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/ivyandbean/pdfs/ivyBeanBigIdea_activitiesGuide.pdf
On page 38 of What’s The Big Idea, Ms. Aruba-Tate shows the class the Certificate of Achievement they’ll earn at the Science Fair. Kids can print out their own Certificate of Achievement here:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/ivyandbean/pdfs/ivyBean_CertificateOfAchievement.pdf
Learn more by visiting the publisher’s website at http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,8981/
I haven’t run a giveaway in a while, but it’s long overdue. Here are the details of this giveaway:
1) Leave a comment with your email address (so we may contact you if you win).
2) Get one additional entry by becoming a subscriber of The Children’s and Teens’ Book Connection. Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know.
3) Get one additional entry for liking Chronicle Books on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ChronicleBooks?ref=ts&v=wall#!/ChronicleBooks. Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know.
4) Get one additional entry for following Chronicle Books on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ChronicleBooks. Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know.
Deadline to enter is 11:59 PM Eastern on Sunday, November 28th. Winner must be a resident of the United States or Canada and have a mailing address in one of those locations. The Children’s and Teens’ Book Connection is not responsible for lost or damaged goods.
Ivy and Bean return in Book 6, Ivy + Bean: Doomed to Dance by Annie Barrows.
When Ivy’s grandma sends her a book titled The Royal Book of Ballet, Ivy and Bean imagine what it would be like to be the Wilis in the production, Giselle. Right away they want to take ballet lessons and they know they are going to love it!
After finally convincing their moms, Ivy and Bean are off to Madame Joy’s to learn ballet, but ballet isn’t anything like they expected and they can’t complain because they promised they wouldn’t. Then they find out that they are going to be the Two Friendly Squids in the “Wedding Beneath the Sea” production and they are determined to do just about anything to make sure they don’t have to dance in that ballet. Hatching a great plan to run away while on a school field trip, the girls come up against a mysterious dark room, sharks and some weird animals that glow in the dark. Maybe running away is not such a good idea after all.
I absolutely adore Ivy + Bean. This funny series of “two friends who never meant to like each other” continues with this latest adventure. I requested to review this one because I danced for ten years and both my girls are dancers. I also thought my reluctant reader might connect with that aspect of the book and be encouraged to pick up Doomed to Dance; and she did, reading it with zest.
There is so much to like in this book: the friendship between Ivy and Bean, the relationships with their mothers, the escape plan they devise to avoid dancing in the ballet, how they come up with this plan after eliminating a few other ideas they toyed with, and how they plan to make the “Wedding Beneath the Sea” production educational and fun.
The illustrations provided by Sophie Blackall are charming and whimsical, just like the characters, and I’m still laughing over the vision of Bean’s ballet kitty as she crouched down on her hands and knees and growled.
This product’s page at Chronicle Books has a video trailer for the book and a link to their Ivy + Bean webpage that has games and contests available. While all six books in this series are sold separately, the first four books are available in the boxed set for holiday gift giving.
I know I’ll be checking out the past and future books in the Ivy + Bean series. I bet your favorite girl ages 6 – 10 will enjoy them too.
Rating: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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