Author Annie Barrows talks about her award-winning Ivy + Bean series: One of the big problems of being a kid is that your parents often try to make you play with people you don't really like. My parents were forever trying to get me to like the kids of their friends. These kids were often weird. I didn't want to play with them. It was a problem.

Ivy and Bean are very different: Bean is loud and wild and goofy. She loves to be involved in games and poke her nose in other people's business. Ivy is quiet and full of ideas. She spends most of her time learning how to be a witch. Each girl thinks the other one is weird. Each girl thinks she could never be friends with the other. But sometimes opposites can become the best of friends because they're opposites.

Ivy & Bean's Secret Treasure Box (Books 1-3) includes:

• Book 1: Ivy + Bean: Both girls were sure they would never like each other, but when Bean finds herself in a pickle, Ivy helps out with a magical spell. The results are glorious: Bean's sister Nancy loses her mind, and Ivy and Bean become forever friends.
• Book 2: Ivy + Bean and the Ghost that Had to Go: Ivy discovers that there's a ghost in the girl's bathroom at Emerson School. What could be cooler? Nothing, until the teachers find out, and Ivy gets in trouble. The girls have to get rid of the ghost, and quick. Potions�??and plumbing�??come to the rescue.
• Book 3: Ivy + Bean Break the Fossil Record: Bean wants to break a world record, but all she seems to be breaking is dishes. Out in Bean's backyard, Ivy and Bean dig up a pile of ancient bones and discover that they are record-breakers: they're the youngest paleontologists in the world! The problem is that nobody believes them.

If you and your child liked Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House books, and Princess in Black; you'll love Ivy & Bean.… (mere)