by Katherine Hannigan
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| List Price: | $5.99 |
| Amazon Price: | $5.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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Product Description
Who is Ida B. Applewood? She is a fourth grader like no other, living a life like no other, with a voice like no other, and her story will resonate long after you have put this book down. How does Ida B cope when outside forces—life, really—attempt to derail her and her family and her future? She enters her Black Period, and it is not pretty. But then, with the help of a patient teacher, a loyal cat and dog, her beloved apple trees, and parents who believe in the same things she does (even if they sometimes act as though they don't), the resilience that is the very essence of Ida B triumph...and Ida B. Applewood takes the hand that is extended and starts to grow up. This first novel is both very funny and extraordinarily moving, and it introduces two shining stars—Katherine Hannigan and Ida B. Applewood.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Great Book!, 2008-09-05
I read Ida B in about 3 days. Katherine Hanningan is an incredible author with a wonderful way of placing you right into the heart of her characters. You feel what they feel and think the way they seem to think. Her writing style will make you smile. I thought that this book is a good recommendation for anyone wanting an entertaining read especially younger readers. Sometimes people don't think that children should have to deal with such hard subjects but the fact is that they do. All in their own way, whether we want to think so or not.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Debut Novel, 2008-08-29
For a debut novel, I thought this was really very good. Ida B. has a strong, compelling voice and I loved her relationship with the trees and streams and nature all around her.
I think girls will especially love this book because Ida B. isn't a perfect little kid, but she is a thoughtful kid and a kid who cares deeply about things.
Ida B. is a good read and I will certainly pick up the next novel that Katherine Hannigan publishes.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
An entertaining story, 2008-07-23
This fun novel is made up of glorious similes, metaphors, and intense descriptions. Ida B is a strong character that comes to life. You can really relate to her feelings. She is unpredictable and makes you want to keep reading to see what she will do next. Ida B is a moving story with a great theme and message about nature. Dealing with a loved one who is diagnosed with cancer is another inspirational theme woven into the plot. After I finished reading, I had to stop a moment to take in everything I had read. It truly made me think, and I believe it will have the same effect on anyone who reads this book. I confidently recommend Ida B.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Ida B Oughta B Ashamed of Herself, 2008-07-01
*SOME SPOILERS*
As a 19-year veteran homeschool mom, I grabbed this one up with excitement - a home educated main character in a respected children's literature novel!! Unfortunately, I'm not sure this character makes an outstanding educational choice role model to present to the masses. Ida B is more befitting of the titles "unschooled" and "spoiled rotten."
Free-spirited Ida B is stifled into Pre-K depression symptoms after one day at the place called school where there are books she could not read, a rabbit she could not pet, and children she could not talk to until the "right time" dictated by the harsh teacher who refuses to add the important initial B to her name. Her mother decides to reawaken Ida B's spirit by home schooling Ida B so that her precious daughter can spend more time telepathically talking to trees each day. (NOTE: SARCASM DEFINITELY INTENDED!) Ida B has a life of idyllic, "nearly perfect" days tending the earth that takes care of her in return until a mean tree spills the beans that something bad is going to happen soon. Her mother finds a cancerous lump which results in long-term treatment. Ida B is perfectly content until the harsh realities of life hit that necessitates a return to school and the sale of part of her land inheritance to assist her beloved parents in paying Mom's hospital bill. Immediately upon Ida B's father developing a backbone by demanding that Ida B obey, she decides to stop liking her parents!?!?
I found it difficult to fathom that a child who had been nurtured and cherished by devoted parents could spew such selfish thoughts towards her frail mother sitting on her daughter's bedside apologizing to poor Ida B for having cancer.
A sad depiction of the social skills of the youngin' continues as she boards the bus where she formulates a plan of no friends, no play, no smiling, no happiness. Of more concern, she briefly describes how she will decimate her school into piles of concrete! Of course all this juvenile angst is predictably resolved in the end with a very unsatisfying repentance...to the trees...not Mom.
It's not that Ida B. was the worst book I've ever read, but it definitely made me cringe and wonder what's the point?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
For children, an easy book with accessible bits of wisom, 2008-05-29
Ida B grows up with loving parents, homeschooled, perhaps a bit indulged, definitely lucky - until the luck stops when her mother gets cancer and she is, woe of woes, forced to go back to the school she hated after a few weeks experience in kindergarten. (How many five-year-olds would be thrilled to be pulled out of school after those first few difficult weeks and allowed to stay home with mommy and daddy)
And the now fourth-grade Ida B reacts like many--perhaps most--children would react; selfishly and nastily. She works as hard as she can to punish everyone around her for her 'misfortunes.' Finally, of course, she realises how awful she's being, repents, and makes good with everyone.
Yes, it's a bit over-cute, and yes, Ida B is a bit Too precocious, but I very much enjoyed the book, and would recommend it for children of approximately Ida B's age. I found Ida B's spoilt reaction to a tragedy she doesnt fully understand to be quite realistic, even in a basically sweet child brought up in loving surroundings. She is unhappy and deals with it by making herself more so - not an uncommon reaction.
When, with the help of her teacher, she slowly lets go of her anger and allows herself to get close to people again, her narration says a lot about relationships in general, in a simple way that children can understand without being turned off.
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