IVY & BEAN “NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS” (BOOK 8)
by Annie Barrows + Sophie Blackall
The latest installment in Barrows’ + Blackall’s whip smart chapter book series for girls 6-10 is a cautionary tale…for dads everywhere. “No News Is Good News”, an entertaining romp for young readers, doubles as a fatherly case study in being extra careful when suggesting to your kids ways they might occupy their time, or more specifically here, ways for them to crowdfund their incessant lust for “Lowfat Belldeloon cheese in a special just-for-you serving size”.
When Bean’s dad tells our protagonists that he produced a newspaper documenting his small town’s happenings as a way of earning some modest coin when he was about their age, the clever 2nd-graders decide to do the same with, ahem, mixed results.
Like the preceding seven books in the stylish Ivy & Bean series, “No News Is Good News” will have you and your kids laughing out loud on one page then gasping an “oh no they didn’t” on the next. The balance of innocent mischievousness and (relatively) harmless curiosity achieved within the writing and pencil-sketched illustrations of an Ivy & Bean book is a marvel. The result in book 8 is a swift, superb read that’ll have your child clamoring to see what hijinks these two gals pull off in #9, and you pausing for a contemplative moment before completing your next “how about you do…” sentence.
*OWTK received a copy of Ivy & Bean book 8 for review consideration. The opinions express above are honest and unbiased.
