Book Summary:
This is the story of a young girl who is seemingly determined to do things that annoy or disrupt others around her. Bean seems to desire to do things the right way...kind of, but seems to always find herself doing what she shouldn't. This story tells the tales of Bean and her pal Ivy and their attempts at doing the right things, despite their natural inclinations to do the exact opposite. When they find some motivation: the love of animals, their endeavors become more intentional. The story outlines how their attempts rarely pay off in the way they intend them to.
APA Reference of Book:
Barrows, A. (2008). Ivy + Bean: Bound to be bad. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
Impressions:
My major impression of this book was that it seemed quite flat. It was probably my least favorite read of the semester in that the characters seemed very one-dimensional and never changing. The events within the book seemed too similar and the author never truly seemed to give the reader a full picture of who the characters are (more than nuisances) and who they could be. I left with very little hope for the series as a whole. I also found the language to be strange. The majority of the language used was simplistic and elementary in nature with strange bursts of higher level verbiage. At times this felt disjointed and unnecessary as it was typically for words which were simply not age appropriate (i.e. it discusses getting her stomach pumped at one point). All in all, this is not a resource I see as necessary for a library. If the students found them interesting, I suppose they would be worth considering, but they seem to hold very little value for the library patrons in content or style.
Professional Review:
Best friends Ivy and Bean decide to be really, really good -- like the guy Ivy once saw in a picture "with birds flying all around him and a wolf licking his foot," the guy who "was so good that wild beasts talked to him and birds swarmed after him." They start by thinking good and loving thoughts, arms stretched out for birds to land on; both, however, would prefer a wolf. Barrows's very funny story tells how the girls go from trying to win over animalkind by changing neighborhood bully Crummy Matt into a nice guy (doesn't work), to having Bean do bad things so that Ivy can reform her (resulting in all the kids on the street trying to outdo Bean), to singing, "Join us in the paths of goodness, and the birds and beasts will love you," while Crummy Matt ties the girls to a tree. Blackall's illustrations keep up with the text; it's hard to say which is funnier -- reading about or looking at the picture of, for instance, Ivy giggling but trying to look horrified when Bean whispers a bad word in her ear. In this fifth book in the series, Ivy and Bean are bound to satisfy fans and garner new ones.
Reference:
Book review of Ivy + Bean: Bound to Be Bad, by A. Barrows. (2009). Horn Book. Retrieved from www.titlewave.com
Library Uses:
This text could be used as a display during a series month/unit. It could also be used in a lesson about development of characters as a non-example.
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