SOMETHING TO DO

Little bear wakes up big bear, bouncing on its stomach and lamenting, “There’s nothing to do.” Using a stick and their imaginations, the two go on an adventure that leads into the sky. Like many stories before it, this journey ends when hunger strikes and the two bears head home. Using sparse text and very minimal line drawings, Lucas skillfully conveys the emotions of the little bear as it moves from boredom to wonderment. On cream-colored pages, the palette modulates from muted tones of slate gray and brown umber to pink, green and golden yellow as the bears’ imaginations grow. Young readers will instantly relate to the richly textured crayon drawings, which illustrate the expressiveness of the story and complement its softness with their deceptively simple, fuzzy-edged forms. While reminiscent of other imagination adventures like Harold and the Purple Crayon and Antoinette Portis’s Not a Stick (2008), this stands out as a unique work because of its emotionally simple charm. (Picture book. 3-5)