GOOD BEAR, BAD BEAR

A little sister has a big inferiority complex.

“My sister can read. I can’t. And I never will,” grouses the story’s narrator, who appears to be the younger sib. “My sister brushes her hair every day. My hair can’t be tamed.” When the girls’ mom, who remains physically absent from these pages (subtext: Sometimes kids can solve their own problems), gives them identical teddy bears, the narrator’s sister names hers—what else?—Good Bear. The narrator knows “exactly what to name mine.” Bad Bear becomes her alter ego: He torments the family dog and helps the narrator knock down her sister’s block house. When Bad Bear loses an eye in the washing machine, the narrator no longer wants him. But leave it to her sister to trade her Good Bear for Bad Bear, which sparks more (hilarious) resentment from the narrator. Although there’s no adult perspective to decode the sisters’ psychology for readers, they’ll totally get it: When the narrator’s sister says that “Bad Bear is funny, brave, and interesting,” she’s reminding her sib of her positive attributes, and the sisters soon make peace. In Yum’s mixed-media art, featuring invitingly plain-as-day colored-pencil shadings, the sisters, who appear to be of East Asian descent, resemble their personalities: One is unkempt, the other tidy. In the story’s wonderful wordless closer, Good Bear reveals her other side while the sisters sleep.

A funny, feelings-front tale with a light touch.