Reviews for What's the Matter, Kelly Beans?

The average rating for What's the Matter, Kelly Beans? based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-03 00:00:00 Petur Blondal ah... the memories of this book :)

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-06 00:00:00 Rachael Ward A story in rhyming text written by the daughter of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, the story briefly tells the history of the first Black female aviator, Bessie Coleman. In one page it talks about her early life picking cotton and then moves on to her inspiration for flying, and then feeling frustrated by the racism and sexism of the day. She went to France to learn to fly and returned to the U.S. to barnstorm. The author includes Bessie Coleman's death simply "But in Jacksonville, Florida everyone cried. /Because Bessie's plane failed, and she fell, and she died. /'Farewell to brave Bessie!' they sighed." The illustrator did a good job showing a cloud of smoke and people crying. There's a refrain going throughout the story that nobody owns the sky and that leads you to follow your dreams. Even after Coleman was killed, the story continues showing kids who were inspired to fly. This isn't the greatest book on Bessie Coleman. It's very very brief and simple but if you have a small child interested in flying, this might do the trick to just introduce Bessie Coleman. The author, being from a famous family, saw injustice in the way Bessie Coleman was barely mentioned in the media at the time although she was a contemporary of Charles Lindbergh. The Lindberghs got so much press they couldn't really live normal lives. For 1997, this isn't a bad book. I knew who Bessie Coleman was and how she died but nothing about her early life so I at least learned a little something.