In my opinion, this is a good book because it shows how people with completely different interests can all come together. In the book there is a pig named Bitsy who loves to paint. She has three friends who all like to do different activities such as read, dance, and play soccer. The friends call themselves the Jellybeans because just like jellybeans they are all different. The Jellybeans like to hang out in the local candy store where the owner has asked Bitsy to paint a mural on the side of the building. Bitsy asks her friends to help her and they are a little nervous, but after a trip to the museum, they are inspired and ready to paint. Bitsy starts to feel nervous and not so confident about her painting abilities. With help and encouragement from her friends, she finishes the mural and it looks great. The main idea of this story is to help friends out when they need it, even if what they are interested in isn't exactly what you enjoy. I thought the writing in the story was very informative. The writing really expressed what the author's points. For example, when the story talks about how much Bitsy loves to paint, the text goes on to say how she paints while eating breakfast, at the beach, while going bowling, and with her best friends. I also think the plot is organized well. First, Bitsy and her love of painting are introduced. Then the story goes on to introduce her friends, their interests, and where they hang out. Finally, the book goes on to Bitsy being asked to paint the mural and her friends helping her. ( )

In my opinion, I think this book was a great story for young readers. One of the things I really liked was that it touched on diversity. The friends compared themselves to jellybeans because they are just as diverse. Each of the girls in the group of friends have different interests and are represented by different animals. The story reads, "the girls were all different but got along great." I thought this was a great lesson for young readers. Another thing I liked about this book was that it had a strong lesson of embracing your talents. None of the friends could paint besides Bitsy and they ended up all working together on a mural which came out great. The text and illustrations also went well together since the pages had white space, along with detailed illustrations that matched the text. This allowed for the text to be featured in the white space. Since this book had more words than a simple picture book, it is important to draw the eye to the text so it can be read clearly. They story also had a simple plot, but did a great job in getting all of the morals and lessons across that I mentioned in the beginning of my review. The big idea of the story was to embrace the differences of others, and come together to complete a goal. ( )

In my opinion, this was a good book. I really liked the illustrations because they were appropriate to the mood of the story. The story had a happy and light mood and the illustrations were bright and colorful to match. I also liked the conflict of the story. Bitsy loves to paint, but when she finds out the whole town will see her painting, she becomes shy and nervous because she is afraid that they won't like what she has made. The conflict in this book is internal for Bitsy, and by the end, she becomes confident. The main idea of this story is to be confident in your abilities because everyone has something to contribute to the world. ( )

if you give a mouse a cookie author, good storytime book for 2012 summer reading/reading is delicious!