Families fond of Bear won’t want to wait to read this installment.
A favorite ursine returns, this time squirmy and impatient.
Bear’s den is strewn with colorful streamers and presents. Bear himself wears a jaunty polka-dot bow tie. He is excited for a surprise, but it’s not happening until later. “He looks toward the sun, / but the day’s just begun. // But the bear / can’t / wait!” Gopher, Mouse, and Mole stop by with ingredients for a carrot cake, and everyone joins in mixing and measuring. “Raven brings a candle / and Owl brings flowers. / Bear asks, ‘Is it time?’ / But there’s still TWO hours!” Bear starts to get even more antsy. In true preschooler form, he starts to fidget and wriggle, tangling the decor around him. Then, when he rushes to be the first one to help with the cake, he trips—and the cake is squashed! All “because bear / couldn’t / wait!” Suddenly, Bear’s speedy (yet, this time, controlled) tendencies are needed as everyone puts the party together again. Impulsive tots will relate—patience is a difficult skill to grasp. Wilson’s sturdy, familiar verse steadies the story, even amid the flying frosting. Chapman’s equally familiar cute forest animals are as expressive as ever, and Bear’s postures as he struggles to wait will elicit both giggles and sympathy. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 34.8% of actual size.)
Families fond of Bear won’t want to wait to read this installment. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5975-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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