More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys: Great Ideas from Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows with illustrations by Sophie Blackall is a tie-in activity suggestion book to their popular Ivy & Bean series of kids/tween novels, free courtesy of publisher Chronicle Books.
Currently free exclusively @
B&N (also
UK), as their Free Fridays selection of the week.
Frankly, this is a bit disappointing, as a good chunk of the activities (namely the quizzes) seem to depend on knowledge of the novels, which I suppose is the point of a tie-in like this to begin with. Although there are perfectly cromulent suggestions for April Fool's Day and other stuff which can be done without familiarity with the characters.
Really, I'm just posting this because the Rainbow Surprise recipe in the Fun With Cooking! section gives me an excuse to link this amazing internet kerfuffle and the ensuing commentary, which is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and some of the best entertainment I've had* this year:
Rainbow-Cake Recipe Inspires Comment Apocalypse (mild warning for some harsh language, mostly having to do with some of the ensuing political arguments† from apparently US persons deciding to duke it out on an Australian blogpost about a cake recipe, which I will note, is not even the wackiest stuff that went on there)
In case you were moved to try and actually make the cake which led to such a meltdown, the Melbourne radio station which hosted it moved the original page to over here:
Amazing Rainbow Tie-Dye Number Surprise Cake
Description
Know a young Ivy + Bean superfan? Download this free Ivy + Bean eBook and keep your favorite little reader busy with Ivy +Bean ideas, trivia, and fun!
* Yeah, yeah, I know. But I grew up without cable TV, and one's standards get a little warped when that happens.
† "For expert geopolitical analysis, we'll now turn to the comments under an Australian radio station's rainbow-cake recipe."