So Ivy+Bean is officially over. Twelve books, fifteen years, and a lifetime to reprints to come. Don’t believe that last part? Go read it. Like, right now. This is one of those “forever” series like Junie or Captain Underpants. And it only has twelve books!

Premise

Meet Ivy and Bean, two friends who never meant to like each other.
The moment they saw each other, Bean and Ivy knew they wouldn’t be friends.

That’s the copy text from the back of book 1. Not sure how exciting it sounds. Pretty sure it’s not that accurate. Very sure there’s more important things to say about them, but maybe not things that would sell books.

The series is a slice of life about two middle-American kids. Emphasis on the “two kids” part.

The + means “and”, by the way.

Characters

Ivy+Bean
They’re the only two real characters, so this is the entire character section and the best character section all in one. Yeah sure, Bean has parents and a sister. Fine, Ivy also has a mom. Okay okay, they both have a couple recurring classmates and a mean neighbor. But none of them matter too much. Every book focuses heavily on Ivy and Bean, and that’s what makes the books so great.

Bean is a tomboy. She likes getting silly and physical and speaks her mind. She even wears more traditionally male clothes (as opposed to Ivy’s dresses). The series also follows Bean’s perspective, likely because she’s the one that initiates most of the plots.

Ivy is the weird kid. She legitimately wants to be a witch when she grows up. She uses chalk to divide up her room into several smaller rooms. Here, I’ll just post this passage from book 3 that sums her up:

A lot of people didn’t understand Ivy’s ideas. She had had plenty of practice at not being believed. That’s probably why she didn’t get as mad about it as Bean did. She just went ahead with her ideas anyway. You can do whatever you want if you don’t care what people think, Bean realized. But you have to do it alone a lot of the time.

Ivy and Bean together are a force of nature. No other series could handle the kind of stuff they get up to. Maybe the biggest scamps in chapter book history.

Just look at these books.

Series Breakdown

I really can’t say much more. They’re such jerks scamps, it’s so great. Just check out these books:

(1) Ivy + Bean – Bean meets Ivy. Bean plays a joke on her sister, then Ivy makes her fall into mud.
(2) and the Ghost That Had to Go – Ivy and Bean exorcise a ghost in the school bathroom by flooding the entire place.
(3) Break the Fossil Record – Ivy and Bean don’t find fossils in their backyard.
(4) Take Care of the Babysitter – Ivy and Bean lock Bean’s sister in the attic.
(5) Bound to be Bad – Bean tries to be bad so Ivy can be good and get animals to follow her around.
(6) Doomed to Dance – Ivy and Bean run away during a class trip to avoid their dance class.
(7) What’s the Big Idea? – Ivy and Bean convince the adults to care about global warming by taking a break outside.
(8) No News Is Good News – Ivy and Bean say they’re going to make a newspaper to scam neighbors out of subscription money so they can buy Babybel cheese to play with the wax wrappers. Then they spy on everyone for articles when they have to actually make the paper. This might be favorite book. The girls are completely shameless in this one: They just want money and don’t care how they get it.
(9) Make the Rules – Ivy and Bean make a summer camp that’s better than Bean’s sisters.
(10) Take the Case – Bean tries to solve the mystery of a rope that keeps getting longer around the neighborhood. Ivy lies that she did it to save face for Bean. They never find out who left the rope around. This is the best part.
(11) One Big Happy Family – Ivy and Bean steal a baby.
(12) Get to Work! – Ivy and Bean hunt for treasure.

I’m heavily summarizing a few of these for the laughs, but all of it happens.

The Art

Let’s talk about Blackall’s art for a sec. It’s actually the reason I stayed away from this series for a while. The art’s kinda weird, right? The girls look… pretty creepy all things considered.

But it’s charming. You get used to it after a while. I think it suits the two very well. Don’t let art scare you off from a series. It’s only half the book.

Cool Stuff

Barrows’ writing is the best. Here’s a few passages and some specific things I wanted to point out:

Passages

• When she and Ivy played House, the house burned down. Bean wished she were playing with Ivy.
• Ivy made a face “Snow White was a goonball. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to eat stuff you get from strangers.”
• “Okay guys!” she yelled at the kids on the curb. “I’m going to be really bad, and then Ivy’s going to make me good. Then we’ll have birds galore. Not just those crow losers.
• Every week Bean and Ivy put on tights and leotards and went to Madame Joy’s School of Ballet, where they fell down and hurt themselves (Ivy) and were bored out of their minds (Bean).
• “Did I scare you? Ivy looked pleased. “I’m trying to walk without making any sound.”

Specific Things

• Ivy and Bean almost sign a literal blood pact to always tell their secrets to each other, then chicken out and sign the pact with spit instead. Like they have a pin and almost stab their fingers with it (the book uses the word “stab”). They call it “The Oath of Liquids” and are dead serious about it every time they bring it up.
• Mean neighbor Mrs. Trantz doesn’t know who Ivy is, even though she lives houses away. I’d like to think this speaks more to how reserved Ivy is than to how old Mrs. Trantz is. She knows who Bean is, and seems to not like any kids near her house.
• Ivy doesn’t draw her dad on her My Important People collage. Either he’s dead or a deadbeat. We never hear about him in the story, either. We go to Ivy’s house multiple times too. She also doesn’t draw her grandpa or her uncle. Pretty nice attention to detail.

Conclusion

Ivy+Bean also has an activity book, which I’ve talked about. They also have a Netflix movie (and stage play!), that I haven’t talked about. And a paper doll set, which I guess was a popular thing in the early 2000s.

I’m not even gonna ask the “Should you read?” question. Yes, you should read Ivy+Bean. Top 5 chapter book series easily. There’s only twelve of them. Pick one. You’ll enjoy it.

Well, maybe. Like Junie, a good amount of parents don’t like this series. Less so for the speech, and more so for the actions. As you saw above, Ivy and Bean do the kinds of things parents might not want kids to emulate.

Still, you should give them a shot. They deserve it.