Dear Friends of Ivy and Bean:

Welcome to Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record! This time around, our girls get mixed up with world records, with dinosaur bones, and with Mary Anning (who discovered the first ichthyosaur skeleton in 1821—but you knew that, didn't you?). As usual, the mix leads to fun, mud, and a certain amount of mayhem.

Since Ivy and Bean Book 1 came out, I've had the gorgeous experience of meeting kids who say, "I love your book," or "I showed it to my friend and she wont give it back," or, my favorite, "I'm changing my name to Ivy." When I got to schools, libraries, and bookstores to read from my books, kids wiggle and laugh and scratch and giggle. We all have a great time, and I go home knowing that writing books is the best job in the world.

But you can write books until you're blue in the face (I wouldn't advise this), and not have anyone read them. Writing is just the beginning of a book's life. Books also need booksellers to point them out to parents, librarians to recommend them to readers, and teachers to include them in classroom libraries. Ivy and Bean have been terrifically lucky in having such strong supporters in these communities, and I am intensely grateful to them.

There's one last group that is much, much, MUCH more important than the author, the booksellers, the librarians, and the teachers. Guess who? The readers. These are my favorite people on earth. Not just because I'm vain and I like people to read what I write, but because it means that there are other people in the world who like to make potions, who think that haunted bathrooms are interesting, and who wonder if it's really possible to break a glass by screaming (I'll be you anything that it is). In other words, people who like Ivy and Bean are people I'd like, and what's more, they're people Ivy and Bean would like, too!

Read on!
Annie Barrows