In this story about friendship and creativity between two mice, Rebecca Dotlich gives us two friends who manage to be friends despite their differences.Bella is a poet who needs quiet time for thinking and writing. Bean is her best friend who wants Bella to come out and play. “Can Bella write poems and plant snow-bushes at the same time?" said Bean. Can't Bean give Bella some space?” The great illustrations and colors bring to life the playfulness of the two girls fun. This book can be used in a writing exercise about friendship. Writing and friends go together as Bella and Bean shows us. ( )

Summary:
This is a story of two friends, Bella and Bean, who are complete opposites. Bella loves to write poetry and enjoys quiet. Bean is adventurous and loves to have a good time. Although they are so different, they are still great friends. They end up writing a poem about their friendship and how it will last forever.

Personal Reaction:
I thought that this was a cute story and I thought it would be a good lesson for children. It not only teaches children strategies on how to write a poem, but also teaches them that learning and writing can be fun. The characters were charming and the pictures were great. The book is filled with letters, words, images, and dancing and comes together to be a great poetry book for young children.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1.) Have students write about their own best friend and the differences they share and why they are best friends.

2.) This is a great book to have student pick a partner, work together to create a small poem, and then each draw their favorite flower. ( )

Bella and Bean were something of an odd couple: one content to sit quietly writing poetry all day, the other eager to be out and about, experiencing the joy of life, and the wonder of the wide world. Hoping to convince Bella to lay down her pen, and share the day with her, the irrepressible Bean adopts successively more outrageous strategies, from wiggling her toes in her friend's face, to lugging a massive snow bush around. Her seeming lack of success is rather disheartening, until the friends' evening picnic reveals just how influential Bean really has been, when it comes to Bella's poetry...

There were definitely things I enjoyed about Bella & Bean, chief amongst them the idea that people and experiences which can be rather difficult at times, are also sometimes the most valuable, the most important to us. Bean is clearly something of a pest, but she also inspires Bella in creative new directions. That said, while I liked the idea of the book, I'm not sure the narrative itself really worked for me - it felt as if the author was trying too hard to be meaningful, to create a Frog and Toad style story - and the artwork, while ostensibly cute, didn't appeal to me. It's not that there was anything really wrong with the book, but I simply couldn't work up any enthusiasm for it. This was a low three stars... ( )

summary: Bella & Bean is a story of two mice best friends. Bella the mouse loves to write poetry, but she is also very moody. While bean is full of energy and loves fashion. At the beginning Bean comes off as annoying to Bella, but Bella soon finds poetry through bean and there friendship is perfect.

personal opinion: I liked this poem book. It wasnt all poetry, but it had poetry in it. The way that poetry is expressed through this book is very interesting.

Classroom extension: Learning a unit over poems.
2:writing our own poems.