Just Loved Reading:
Full of Beans
Middle Grade/Fiction
Holm, Jennifer L. Full of Beans. New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2016.
Depression-era Key West was no tourist destination. Kids like Beans Curry will tell you. Beans is 10 years-old. His kid brother, Kermit and a stray dog he named Termite, follow him everywhere he goes – delivering laundry his mother takes in, collecting used cans for pennies, shooting marbles for the best team in the Keys or seeing the latest Shirley Temple movie.
One day, men from the Roosevelt administration come to the Keys with the aim of turning the Keys into a tourist destination. No one likes these intruders least of all Beans but he doesn’t let them interfere with his chance to make some easy money by helping a local rum smuggler. His dad is in New Jersey looking for work and his family needs the money.
The government men slowly win over the locals and soon tourists descend on the Keys and improve the local economy. But what will happen to Beans and his family?
WHY I LOVED READING THIS BOOK:
Beans Curry, the central character in Full of Beans of Beans, propels the plot by the force of his personality. The Florida Keys were economically depressed like the rest of the country and hardly able to welcome visitors. Kids ran barefoot and hungry. Full of Beans is based on the true story of the Roosevelt administration’s attempts to turn the Keys into a tourist mecca. Local slang, customs, and foods, add an extra dimension to the story about one summer in the life of a 10-year old boy.
MORE ON KEY WEST DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/depress/depress1.pdf
http://www.floridahistory.org/depression.htm
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FLORIDA KEYS AND KEY WEST TODAY:
http://www.fla-keys.com/key-west/
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