Beatrice and Barb

Like many children, Beatrice wanted a pet, but her mother rejected all of Beatrice’s suggestions that began with a dog and included a cat, hedgehog and “a very small horse” before mother and daughter compromised on a plant that Beatrice named Barb and treated like her first pet choice, a dog. Beatrice took Barb for walks, played fetch with her and even made “Barb a cozy bed right next to her own.” Despite Beatrice’s loving care, Barb begins to look droopy and unhealthy, and, thinking that Barb might be lonely, Beatrice invites her friend Leo to bring his dog , Lucy, over for a playdate. Leo also notices Barb’s unhealthy appearance and comments, “When Lucy is sick, we take her to the vet.”

Beatrice seizes on Leo’s suggestion, but the vet explains she can’t help Barb, a plant, because “I am an animal expert.” Nonetheless, the vet writes “a prescription for fresh potting soil and good-quality fertilizer.” Despite Beatrice’s filling the prescription, repotting Barb and faithfully providing the fertilizer drops, Barb continues to fail. Beatrice, thinking she may have misread the vet’s prescription, reexamines the piece of paper and finds a note on the back that instructs her, in the case of an emergency, to go to an address the vet has provided. Beatrice, taking Barb with her, immediately does so and finds herself at a plant shop where Millicent, the shopkeeper, explains both the cause of Barb’s unhealthy state and the solution. Barb is a Venus flytrap, a plant that is used to poor soil and strong sun. Instead of Venus flytraps’ obtaining nutrients from the soil, this plant’s “diet” consists of insects. Armed with this new knowledge, Beatrice re-repots Barb in peat moss and sand and places her in the house’s sunniest window, and, in this more familiar environment, Barb not only recovers but flourishes.

Mineker’s digitally rendered cartoon-like artwork works perfectly with Landry’s lighthearted text and, for example, visually explains how Beatrice could walk her plant or play fetch with it. Beatrice’s friend Leo is simply portrayed as being seated in a wheel chair. Mineker does take a bit of illustrator license in the closing illustration which shows Barb catching a fly with a SNAP!. Like Beatrice, as a child I couldn’t have a pet, and, also like Beatrice, I owned a Venus flytrap, albeit unnamed and unwalked. I can assure everyone that Venus flytraps do not make an audible sound when they close. It is unfortunate that the publisher didn’t add an appendix containing some factual information about how the plant catches and digests insects lest young readers (and their parents) think that a Venus flytrap is the answer to the summer mosquito problem.