Please keep in mind when reading this concerning content how this book is packaged (see the cover) and the audience it is being targeted at. --- You would think that the terrible behavior of the characters, which we will get to next, would be the worst aspect of this book, but there is actually something worse. The most concerning thing about this book from a Christian perspective is that the character Ivy wants to be a witch. This isn’t just an instance we see in a lot of books where a bunch of kids dress up in costumes and one is dressed as a witch. This young girl genuinely wants to become a witch. The book expands on this by telling us that her aunt gave her huge thick book of spells, which she practices. Then, to make it even worse, at one point the girls decide to paint her face in a witchlike way. What results is a genuinely frightening drawing of a young girl’s face painted all white, with dark eye circles and… drops of blood running down her face (yes, you read that right). All illustrated for young children and families who pick up a book with two young girls smiling on the cover. Probably the worst part of the whole thing is that it speaks about being a witch as if it was the most natural and ok thing in the world… to children. --- Bean, the main character, is completely awful. Her behavior is terrible. She lies and is deceptive (e.g., bold-faced lies to the neighbor when caught in her yard, something she knows she is not allowed to do, all while hiding from her parents). She is unkind (before she meets Ivy she already has decided she doesn’t like her). She is disrespectful (replies to a comment made by her mother by saying, “next train to boring leaving now”). She believes things we would never want our kids believing (comments that she knew that ‘nice’ is just another word for ‘boring’). She thinks things we would not want our kids thinking (considers kicking her sister). She does things we would never want our kids doing (steals money from her sister’s purse, she sticks her head under a dressing room door and makes a noise/comment about the lady in the next stall). She says things we would never want our kids saying (when pretending to be a ghost she begins to tell her sister she will haunt her and begins to describe strangling her). She is a terrible sibling (many examples here, but she says she thinks her sister is a booger head, talks about bugging her until she freaks out, threatens her, sticks her tongue out and shakes her rear end at her). She is sneaky (when told to stop bickering with her sister she silently mouths “you’ll be sorry” to her). She speaks about being nice as if it is a bad thing. --- The sister character appears less, but seems equally bad. She is rude, mean and shallow. We are told she thinks of Bean is a pain and a pest. --- There is more we could point out, but you certainly get the point on what type of book this is, all aimed at young girls.