Lone Bean

by Chudney Ross

Overview

I have a flower name . . . but it is long and hard to spell and terrible. I'll never tell anyone what it is. Mom and Dad sometimes call me by my real name when I'm in big trouble, but otherwise I'm just called Bean.

Bean Gibson is so excited about the first day of third grade, not even her m-e-a-n mean older sisters, Rose and Gardenia, can bring her down.

But Bean's year gets off to a bad start—her best friend, Carla, has made a new best friend, and Bean has to begin music lessons. Bean picks the violin (the cello is too big) and tries to find new friends, but music lessons are a lot of work, Goody Two-Shoes Gabrielle is prissy, and Terrible Tanisha is a bully. And Bean's mom is always at work. Bean h-a-t-e-s hates third grade!

Lone Bean is an entertaining read about spunky Bean Gibson and how she learns what it means to be a good friend. And that it's possible to have more than one.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062114402
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/26/2012
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	933 KB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Chudney Ross is a writer, educator, entrepreneur, and TV host. After graduating Georgetown University, she became a teacher with AmeriCorps's Teach for America. Chudney's love of children's literature and her advocacy for children's causes motivated her to open her first business. Books and Cookies, a children's book­store, bakery, and enrichment center in Santa Monica, California, brings the fun and excitement back to reading while promoting literacy to children of all ages. Lone Bean is Chudney's first children's book.

Editorial Reviews

Eight-year-old Chrysanthemum "Bean" Gibson has high hopes for the first day of third grade, but she has an at-home meltdown after things go wrong. The star of Ross's debut expects tons of school-year fun, never dreaming that she'd be dealing with the changed loyalties of her best friend, a class bully, and her father's demand that she learn to play a musical instrument. As the story meanders along, Bean sorts through her problems and misunderstandings with help from supportive parents, occasionally ?"m-e-a-n MEAN" older sisters, some unexpected new pals—and only a few episodes of "twisty-turny feelings in tummy." Ross, the youngest daughter of singer Diana Ross and the owner of the California children's bookstore Books and Cookies, creates a relatable protagonist with gumption, whose insights into others' feelings make her an empathetic friend ("Now I know Tanisha is a meany and a bully, but something in my insides makes me feel bad. I mean, she has no friends, and no sisters and no ice cream"). Things wrap up neatly, leaving the door open for further tales. Ages 8–12. Agent: Frank Weimann, the Literary Group. (July)

Publishers Weekly

A spunky young character takes a complicated path to find her place in school, but she stumbles along the way. Unfortunately, so does the author. With her debut effort, Ross brings readers Chrysanthemum, better known as Bean. It's the start of the school year, and Bean can't wait to see her best friend Carla and get third grade started. But almost immediately, Bean discovers that nothing is as she'd imagined. Most significantly, Carla no longer wants to be friends. The story conveys Bean's struggle to find her place in her family with sisters Rose and Gardenia and at school, facing down the class's biggest bully, Tanisha. It's obvious that Ross cares about her character and her struggles. But the book moves slowly, and at 197 pages it feels much too long for kids Bean's age. Those children comfortable with length and reading level may well not be interested in reading about a third-grader. Inconsistent language is jarring, making Bean feel like a girl anywhere from 6 to 16. Not to mention, Bean's epiphany will leave kids with wrinkled foreheads, asking, "Huh?" In the end, the book fails to deliver a story that stands out or characters who stand apart. (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews