Bean's Big Day. Karen Ackerman. Illustrated by Paul Mombourquette. Toronto, ON: Kids Can, 2004. 32pp., cloth, $17.95. ISBN 1-55337-444-4. Subject Headings: Self-acceptance-Juvenile fiction. Motion picture industry-Juvenile fiction. Kindergarten-grade 5 / Ages 5-10. Review by Valerie Nielsen. ***1/2 /4

excerpt:

News spreads fast as chicken pox in a town as small as Bean, Pennsylvania. So when Mr. Trapp in the telegraph office got word that somebody from the moving pictures was coming, it didn't take long for everyone to find out.

Eight-year-old Cricket, who has never seen a movie, is so excited when she hears the news at the Trapps' store that she lights out for home without her penny or her candy. Her dad, who is the calmest person Cricket knows except for her mother, is not too impressed when his daughter drops the bombshell:

"And he's looking to pick somebody to be in a picture show!"

"Whole town is set to go crazy then," he sighed, as he continued with the milking.

"Go help your mama, Cricket," he told me.

     Mama's reaction to Cricket's announcement is a murmured "m'hm" as she goes on hanging out the laundry. The rest of the townsfolk take the news much as Crickets parents do, Bean being an "m'hm" kind of a place. Cricket expects, therefore, that the meeting called by Mayor Allan will be a pretty boring affair. However when one of the town matrons claims that movies are the Devil's work, the gloves are off. The meeting becomes a free-for-all with purses swung, hats swatted, ink wells upset and a sock hanging from the rafters. Daddy's prediction seems to have come true. What surprise, then, when the day of the visit comes, that the residents of Bean are lining the main street dressed in their Sunday best to welcome the picture show man!

     The person who is picked to be in the movie is a complete surprise to every disappointed hopeful in Bean, including Cricket and her family. By the end of the story, however, there is a lesson in Bean's Big Day that does not escape the young narrator. To see what's special in a person, says Cricket to herself, "I think you've got to be willing to pay them some mind."

     Karen Ackerman has published more than 25 books for children, among them her Song and Dance Man, winner of the Caldecott Medal in 1989. Bean's Big Day is a delightfully nostalgic tale set in the 1920's when the moving picture was in its heyday. Apparently, it was inspired by a story about filmmaker D.W. Griffith's visit to a small town in Pennsylvania in search of actors.

     Ackerman's folksy style and use of colorful dialogue to create memorable characters give artist Paul Mombourquette the perfect opportunity to infuse his paintings of those characters with humour and personality. His vibrant colours and meticulous attention to detail bring the Twenties to life in this funny and fast-moving picture book.

     Bean's Big Day will make an enjoyable story-time selection for the primary students, provided the adult reader is willing to spend a little time talking about the way things were in the second decade of the last century.

Highly Recommended.

A retired teacher-librarian, Valerie Nielsen lives in Winnipeg, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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