IVY + BEAN GET TO WORK!

Iconic second graders Ivy and Bean are back for their final outing.

Two little girls couldn’t be much more different. Bean’s mind races in remarkable (but ever so age-appropriate) circles, making it hard to stay on task, and Ivy is as quiet and contained as Bean is boisterous. But the pair are perfect together, always finding clever ways to sort out their differences and making fun out of just about any small idea. This time it’s treasure hunting. After learning at a career day about what magical and valuable items could be found if they just could afford a metal detector, the girls decide to use their “special sense” of what’s lost, inspiring lots of hole-digging but very little treasure-finding. It’s only after they secretly hide treasured items for each other that they meet with remarkable and very satisfying success. Many of the children who read the first Ivy + Bean book as second graders in 2006 are now, unbelievably, college graduates. But the series has remained fresh and relevant, offering a perfect first dip into chapter books for a whole new generation of readers. Like the others in the series, this effort combines Barrows’ nicely developed characters and her hilarious, easy-to-read take on juvenile adventures with Blackall’s spot-on Chinese ink illustrations on every spread, with purely delightful results. Ivy and Bean both present White; their classmates are diverse.

The final, delicious entry in a much-loved series.