Best friends Ivy and Bean learn that being very good, or very bad, can be a real challenge when they set out to become like a man Ivy heard about who was so pure of heart that birds and animals followed him.

It's the Science Fair, and the second grade is all over it! Some kids are making man-eating robots. Some kids are holding their breath for a very, very long time. Some kids are doing interesting things with vacuum cleaners. The theme, obviously, is global warming. But what should Ivy and Bean do? Something involving explosions? Or ropes? Something with ice cubes? Or maybe ... maybe something different.

Second-grade best friends Ivy and Bean beg for ballet lessons, then, when they are cast as squids in their first recital, scheme to find a way out of what seems to be boring, hard, and potentially embarrassing.

When Bean's parents leave her in the care of her older sister Nancy for the afternoon, she enlists her neighbor and best friend, Ivy, to come over and teach Nancy how to be a really good babysitter.