Review: The Adventure of Little Bean

Banner Children's Literature — Banner Children’s Literature

Welcome, dear Reader, to the first review in our new category “Dragon Adventures”. Next to my standard reviews and the Book Tales, I’ll also sometimes include posts about genres that are outside of the normal scope of this blog. For this first edition: Children’s literature. Will you join me on this first adventure?

Thanks to Ageno H. Monica for reaching out and providing me with a free review copy!

About the Author

Ageno H. Monica writes and illustrates books for children. She focusses on imaginative stories with educational value and believes that reading to children from an early age will help to build their confidence. Her work varies from books for teenagers, like Dream Thief, to books for a younger audience like Samson & The Bullies.

(Attention, the above links to Amazon are affiliate links, meaning that if you would decide to make a purchase via one of them, I would receive a small percentage at no extra charge for you!)

The Adventure of Little Bean

Storyline

The Adventure of Little Bean tells the story of a little bean (bet you saw that coming 😉 ) who tries to find a suitable home. But can plants still find a safe area to grow and prosper in a world that is increasingly urbanized and polluted?

Topic

On the cover of this book, we see an anthropomorphic plant with a cute face, against a backdrop of a city. This seems fitting, seeing that the book addresses environmental concerns. Given the state of the planet, I applaud any book that creates awareness about nature and helps children to understand why it is important to take care of our environment. Of course, this is a rather complex theme, but The Adventure of Little Bean succeeds in making it understandable to preschoolers. I believe that reading this book to them might facilitate discussions related to how even small children can take care of our world.

Characters

As I mentioned before, the main character of the book is an anthropomorphic bean plant, who struggles to find his place in the city. He’s very cute and I’m sure he’ll win over the hearts of youngsters, which will help them to connect with the topic via their empathy for him. Little Bean also encounters various other inhabitants of the city. These all have good intentions and try to help him out, even though they are not always very successful. I think it’s very important that the characters in a book draw kids’ attention. Being as cute and “childlike” as he is, I’m sure Little Bean will do the trick.

Illustrations & layout

Each set of pages consists of one page with a large digital illustration and one with text. There’s quite a bit more text per page than I would have expected, but seeing that the book is meant to be read to children rather than by children, I don’t necessarily think that will be a problem. The illustrations are relatively simple and the art style is quite modern. I’m personally more of a classical-fairytale-style-drawing kind of girl for children’s books, but I have to admit this style rather fits the topic and will be attractive to the young target audience. The characters are all very cute, though. My favourite one is Mr. caterpillar. What a delightful little fellow.

Educational value

At the end of the book, there are a couple of pages with additional educational content to further elaborate the topic. The lesson of the story is made explicit, and there are several questions to help children reflect. I’m a big fan of the concept of adding these pages and the content is relevant, but I’m not totally convinced about the layout. I think It would have been fun to include Little Bean here too, to ensure that the child’s attention is kept.

Age Category: 3 – 7

Release date: 25 October 2021