This book has all the classic Kate DiCamillo standbys: an unlikely animal friend, absent parent, poetry, Florida, a male/female friendship that is almost but not quite romantic, a bond between a kid and an old person, a big meal at the end with all the protagonist’s new friends (who are all from different generations). Luckily, I’m a big fan of Kate DiCamillo, so I’m also fond of her standbys. What’s not to like? They’re tried and true.

This is the third in a sort-of series, and overall I think it’s better than Raymie but not as good as Louisiana. There’s a quote from Because of Winn-Dixie, one of my all-time favorite lines, that goes like this: “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.” This sentiment lies at the center of all DiCamillo’s books. Beverly is not a sad book, per se, but there is an underlining melancholy that never quite goes away. One of its most unlikable characters repeatedly tells Beverly that she needs to have a dream, that she needs to stop living day-to-day and start thinking bigger or she’ll never be happy or worth anything. But the fact is that Beverly, the daughter of a neglectful, alcoholic mother, doesn’t have the luxury of not living day-to-day. Neither do the other workers at the restaurant where she gets a job - that same mean girl character disparages them for going on strike in an effort to get better wages instead of thinking beyond their little town. It is with this latter group that Beverly finds a new, tenuous family. Like them, she does not need grand dreams to be happy; she needs security, and she finds a bit of that by the end, enough to set her at ease, to give you the sense that she can heal as time goes on. There is something admirable in acknowledging that kids don’t have to have dreams to be worthy of love. Learning how to exist in the world, learning how to open up, is courageous, too. The ending reflects this. The sadness doesn’t completely go away; there is no dramatic happy ending. There is simply the sense that Beverly is a little better off than she was before, and that she will be able to find healing in the future.

It’s nice, it’s familiar, it’s very well-done, but it’s not... particularly ambitious. There was a time when Kate DiCamillo was the queen of kid lit. The woman has two Newberys, the first of which she received only three years after receiving an Honor. She’s a two-time National Book Award Finalist, she won the Boston Globe-Horn Book, she was the U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2014 to 2015. She’s still beloved - the turnout for her children’s keynote speech at the Boston Book Festival last year was terrific - but I think her books aren’t as exciting as they used to be. They just aren’t as fresh, and there are other authors writing more interesting, diverse stories, and those stories are the ones winning the awards now. I mean, Beverly, as much as I liked it, doesn’t do anything new even by DiCamillo terms. That makes me kind of sad, because I absolutely adore her - Winn-Dixie is perhaps my all-time favorite book. But it’s nice, too; it’s nice to know that these new innovative stories are out there, and it’s nice to know that DiCamillo will always be waiting with a story that will, like a Littmus Lozenge, make me sad and happy both. What she does she does masterfully. This book is just short enough to never lose your attention and just long enough to satisfy, so if it sounds at all appealing, you should definitely read it. It won’t be anything especially new, but it won’t disappoint, either.