Ida B

In her children’s novel Ida B: ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World (2004), Katherine Hannigan uses an intimate first-person point-of-view to convey the struggles children experience during unexpected life changes outside of their control.

The story begins on a typically happy evening for Ida B. Applewood as her mother tells her to go play outside once she has finished the dishes. Ida B. is excited to get on with her plans for the evening, which include making things and visiting her favorite spots in her family’s apple orchard. Ida loves her life and her family—she lives with her mother and father, a cat, and a dog. Home-schooled, she is in touch with nature. She has named all the trees in her family’s orchard, and she often believes she can actually feel the life inside the plants and creatures around her. She often talks to the trees and other things around her, imagining that they talk back to her.

One day, the trees and other living creatures warn her that something terrible is coming. Disturbed, she doesn’t know what they could mean. However, she notices changes in her life; her parents—normally chatty and ebullient—become quiet and withdrawn. Her mother goes to see a doctor. When she returns, Ida’s parents tell her that her mother has cancer.



Everything changes. Her parents are worried, and her mother goes to the hospital to have surgery to treat the cancer. Afterward, she begins a series of treatments to try to end the cancer for good. The treatments are very expensive, and they make her mother very tired and sick, which upsets Ida. Ida had believed that she was in tune with the world around her, but now everything feels as though it has turned against her. Still, she tries to be a good daughter. She helps with the chores and makes an effort to be quiet so her mother can rest.

Her father pulls Ida aside one evening and tells her that because of the expense involved with her mother’s treatments, they must sell part of the orchard. This horrifies Ida because she feels that the trees are hers, part of her family. Her father also tells her that because of her mother’s illness, they can no longer home school her, so she will have to attend Ernest B. Lawson Elementary School. Upset at this news, Ida feels betrayed by life. Angry, she resolves to no longer love, imagining her heart turning into a small black rock inside her. She hates her parents, she hates the trees, and she hates the school.

Attending public school is a shock to Ida. Her teacher, Ms. Washington, is very kind to her; the other kids in her class are nice to Ida, but refusing to accept their friendship, she is mean to them. At home, Ida avoids her parents as much as possible.



Ida learns that the family that purchased their land is building a house. This upsets her further, and she decides she will drive the family away. She makes alarming and scary signs and starts putting them up all over their property to try to make them stop building their house. The family ignores the signs, though, and Ida discovers that a girl from her class, Claire, is part of this new family. When Ida asks them about the signs, Claire and her brother tell Ida they thought the signs were funny instead of disturbing. Feeling even angrier, Ida yells insults at Claire and her brother until they burst into tears. Claire tells Ida that she is mean.

Expecting Claire to take revenge on her, Ida goes to school suspicious and paranoid, waiting for Claire to make her move. Nothing happens, however. This makes Ida think that maybe Claire was right and she is mean. Her tiny black heart begins to move again; she decides she owes Claire an apology. She tells her that she is sorry. Then she goes to the trees and apologizes to them as well.

Ms. Washington helps Ida to see that there are still things to be happy about in life; she points out that friends are good, that Ida enjoys reading out loud from books, and that she should enjoy these simple pleasures, accepting that life sometimes doesn’t cooperate. Taking this advice to heart, Ida begins to interact with the other kids at school more. At home, she seeks out her parents, and they come together as a family; Ida admits that she still loves them and still loves the trees and the rest of nature as well.