Bess the Barn Stands Strong

by Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia, Katie Hickey (Illustrator)

Overview

A steadfast old barn shows she’s sturdy enough to save the day.

Beam by beam and board by board, Bess the barn is built by able hands to keep the farm’s animals safe and sound. Through many seasons and celebrations, that’s just what she does, until she starts to sag…and creak…and slump. Then new everything comes along: a new farmer and a shiny new barn. A mean storm arrives not far behind, putting both barns to a dangerous test—can old Bess weather this threat to the farm?

Bess opens her doors wide, welcoming all to celebrate the year-round ups and downs of farm life and admire the enduring strength and importance of something made to last.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781624149801
Publisher:	Page Street Publishing
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia is a former teacher and audiologist who loves to stand in old barns and listen to all the sounds. This is her debut picture book, inspired by a real barn in her neighborhood that felt like an old friend before it was torn down. She lives with her husband, two teenagers and two dogs in central Iowa.

Katie Hickey is a freelance illustrator who blends hand rendered print processes and digital methods and finds inspiration in her travels and surroundings. She loves drawing environments and enjoyed making Bess the barn an unusually human one. Katie lives in Surrey, England.

Editorial Reviews

There’s a marvelous mix of peppy text and bone-deep comfort at work within the language of this story… [and] visual treasures abound in the corners of the art… Seasons come and seasons go, but cozy concepts like barns on farms will never ever die.” – Kirkus Reviews

* “A true storyteller, Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia gives Bess life with literary gilding; there’s repetition, imagery, personification and more. The prose flows, poetic and brusque by turns, as the finely wrought story oh-so-delicately addresses the concept of passing on... Bess the Barn Stands Strong reminds us that love shelters us through all storms. Sometimes love protects us tangibly, while other times it surrounds us with friendships that change us forever.” – BookPage, starred review

From the Publisher

2020-05-17
A friendly barn on a family farm weathers weather, time, and change.

Pencil and crayons lovingly illustrate the story of Bess, a family barn raised “Beam by beam and board by board” by a farming family. Bess exudes comfort and stability to all the animals that take shelter beneath her roof, and she loves observing the cycle of life and its celebrations. But when the old farmer dies, a new owner raises a different barn made of corrugated steel and filled with “new-fangled machines.” Forgotten, Bess weathers quietly until the timely appearance of a savage storm gives her the chance to be a hero. There’s a marvelous mix of peppy text and bone-deep comfort at work within the language of this story. Paying homage to such classics as Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House (1942) as well as more recent titles like School’s First Day of School by Adam Rex and illustrated by Christian Robinson (2016), Bess’ physical anthropomorphization is limited to little details, as when boards fall askew to resemble eyebrows. Visual treasures abound in the corners of the art, and children may enjoy figuring out which characters from the beginning of the book (most white, some people of color) change and grow by the story’s end.

Seasons come and seasons go, but cozy concepts like barns on farms will never ever die. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews