Ivy & Bean Doomed to Dance

Annie Barrows's Ivy & Bean Doomed to Dance is a laugh-out-loud story for 7 year olds about two best friends who beg for ballet lessons and then would do anything to get out of them.

What happens

It all starts with a book. Ivy's grandma sends her The Royal Book of the Ballet, and the girls stop dead at the gory bits. A girl called Giselle comes back as a ghost and dances a duke to death. Brilliant!

So obviously they have to take ballet. Bean's mum agrees on one condition. The whole session, sixteen lessons and a show at the end. No quitting. And no complaining.

Then they meet Madame Joy, and it's first position, second position and pliés for half an hour. Nobody kicks anybody's head off. Ivy keeps falling over. Bean gets told off for singing. A five-year-old called Dulcie does everything perfectly and curtseys (show-off).

Worst of all, there's going to be a show on a real stage in front of everyone. Dulcie is the mermaid. Ivy and Bean are the two friendly squids.

How do you get out of something you promised not to quit? Ivy and Bean try everything. They climb onto the playhouse roof, planning to leap off and sprain their arms, and the roof folds round Ivy like a taco. They go looking for the sickest kid in the playground so they can catch his germs. When the class goes on a trip to the aquarium, they make a plan to run away and live there.

The reason it's so funny is that they're completely serious about every single plan. Bean packs underwear and a bag of salt. Ivy has read a book about runaways, so she knows they can live on the coins people throw in the fountain.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

That ballet story is quite dark when you think about it (a girl stabs herself, then the ghosts dance a man to death), and the girls try to hurt themselves on purpose so they won't have to dance. Nobody comes to harm and it's meant to be silly. A very literal-minded reader might need a quick chat about why spraining your arm isn't a plan!

If you've got a reader who has ever begged for a club and then dreaded every minute of it, they'll love this.

What to read next

It's the sixth Ivy and Bean book. For the next one along, try What's the Big Idea? Some fifth graders come in to explain global warming, and Ivy and Bean end up very worried about polar bears.