Ivy and Bean Take the Case

Annie Barrows · ★★★★

Bean goes noir. Towards the end of the series Barrows negotiated the inevitable maturing of her young characters by leveraging their own preceding reputations on Pancake Ct. into wilder, slightly more fantastical adventures. I think she's pretty successful in this one, where the girls continue to think about what they want to be when they grow up by trying on different personas. Here, Bean give private investigation a shot by pretending to be like a character she watched in an old noir movie her mom likes [side note: we get a glimpse of the level of parental restriction placed on Bean in this episode and I gotta be honest, I thought it was weirdly depriving]. Thus kicks off Bean's attempt to solve various mysteries in the neighborhood eventually landing on a really good one: the case of a rope that had been tied to a neighbor's chimney and which mysteriously continues to grow longer and longer, snaking its way around front lawns over the course of several days. The mystery may or may not be solved by the book's end (no spoilers) but I can tell you Barrows does a great job preserving the magic of childhood innocence while respecting her characters' - and readers' - intelligence.