Skip to main content

Full of Beans

Image
By


Full of Beans 
By Jennifer L. Holm
Random House Children’s Books, 2016. 208 p.

Once upon a time I discovered a book called Boston Jane: an Adventure by Jennifer L. Holm. I fell in love with this book! It had drama, romance, and some adventure—along with a fun historical fictional world. Of course I fell in love with the book. And I was so pleased when along came two other books in that series. But I digress. That was my first introduction to the world of Jennifer L. Holm. I next read about a young girl in a home full of brothers that tries to figure out who she is. Then I read (and enjoyed the illustrations by the author’s brother Matthew Holm) about a mouse who went to school and LOVED the color pink. Then along came Turtle in Paradise where a girl named Turtle has to go and live with her relatives in Key West, Florida. Now that was a great book as well!

Fast forward to this year and just imagine how happy I was that Jennifer Holm had written yet another book. And this one was about Turtle’s relatives! Full of Beans is about life in Key West before Turtle arrives. It tells the story about Beans and how he got his nickname. And how he got the famous (perhaps infamous) Diaper Gang started. This book is another example of great characters fighting just to survive in a hard time (that whole Great Depression thing). Historical fiction done well not only introduces characters to what life was like in a certain place in a certain time in history—but it also makes readers think about that time. And that is what will happen here. Readers may wonder what they would do if they lived in Key West or the Great Depression (would they paint their house pink or go along with the scheme to help move the “coffins”?) or if they were Bean’s friend (or not depending upon how they shot marbles or if they were good with keeping the secret of the diaper rash formula). And this book will make readers think. Mostly it will make them think because the characters and the setting seem so real that the things in the book will seem like part of everyday life. I seriously don’t know how Jennifer Holm does it, but yet again she has written a historical fiction novel that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Other books by Holm that I didn’t mention above that I also enjoyed:
Penny From Heaven 
The Fourteenth Goldfish
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The New Girl

By
The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker

By
  Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker By Heidi Heilig New York: Greenwillow Books, 2025. Fiction. 291 pages. Thanks to Cincinnati Lee's no good, dirty rotten, artifact stealing great great great grandfather, Cincinnati's family is now cursed and Cincinnati feels like it's up to her to break the curse. Which involves trying to steal the artifacts back from museums that her grandfather robbed from graves and archeological sites around the world and return them to their countries of origin. But when Cincinnati's first artifact stealing mission goes awry, she decides it might be more effective to steal an all-powerful artifact herself that she can use to break the curse - The Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately her race for the spear will pit her against art smugglers and thieves intent on finding the ancient artifact themselves. If you are looking for an Indiana Jones read-alike, this is the perfect for you! Heavy on the adventure with similar levels of mysticism to those seen in th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more