Review by New York Times Review
"MY goodness, what's the matter?" I once asked a 5-year-old boy who was sitting at the edge of a Sunday school group and staring morosely into space. "I don't like bears" he told me. "They have mean eyes." Not in picture books, they don't. In picture books, bears tend to have either small eyes that twinkle with kindness or large, flat button eyes that regard the world with calm docility. Bears are never the bad guys in picture books, though the one in "A Visitor for Bear," by Bonny Becker, starts out as a grump. Bear has a lovely old Tudor cottage (as illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton), with a beehive design on the fire screen and a basket of apples under the green pump in the kitchen, but he doesn't want anyone to come inside. To make his point clear, he has put up a No Visitors Allowed sign on his front door. After chasing a mouse away, Bear sets his bee-printed tablecloth with one cup and one spoon, just the way he likes it. "But when he opened the cupboard to get one bowl ... there was the mouse! Small and gray and bright-eyed." The mouse suggests a spot of tea, but Bear shows him the door. Undaunted, the mouse keeps turning up - dancing on a loaf of bread, sitting in an egg carton. ("A crackling fire?" the mouse hints.) Though Bear plugs the tub and stops up the chimney, the mouse persists until Bear finally offers him some tea. "They sat for a long while. The clock in Bear's house ticked loudly." By the time the mouse is ready to leave, Bear of course wants him to stay, and they go back inside for some more tea "A Visitor for Bear" has the feel of a classic, and it's so cozy no parent could object to reading it aloud every night. The angular scarf-wearing star of "Bear's Picture," by Daniel Pinkwater, is stubborn in a different way: he wants to paint a picture. "First he made an orange squiggle. Then he had a look at it. 'I believe it wants some blue,' said the bear. And he painted some blue." Sounds good, but the "fine, proper gentlemen" - both painted in gray and black - don't get it. "Bears aren't the sort of fellows who can do whatever they like," they say. As the bear adds more and more colors, the gentlemen try to figure the picture out. A butterfly? A clown? No, the bear tells them. "It is a honey tree. ... It is a cold stream in the forest." It's a picture of the things bears like, and the two gray gentlemen will never understand. But the bear is happy, and his paint-spattered necktie is as colorful as his art. I can't tell if kids will take "Bear's Picture" to heart. Though faultless in their own way, the text and the illustrations (by D.B. Johnson) veer toward the realm of Sophisticated Grown-Up Picture Books - stories that graphic designers who boycott licensed toys want their kids to like. But there are certainly plenty of parents like that, and they will love "Bear's Picture." I would bet that "Wonder Bear," by Tao Nyeu, is going to be a big deal. It's a wordless dream about two children who plant two packets of seeds. One packet bears a picture of a watermelon; the other, a picture of a top hat. As the children sleep - their bed conveniently outside, next to their garden - the top-hat seeds sprout into a huge magic plant covered with looping vines and orange flowers. Out of one of these flowers steps the top-hatted white Wonder Bear. He reaches into the hat and pulls out a batch of monkeys, who quickly form a pyramid. The bear shoots the two children out of a cannon right to the top before he blows a swarm of soapbubble lions who chase the monkeys away, after which Wonder Bear turns the sky into the sea, and the two children ride away on a dolphin king while an octopus carries the monkeys. Then it's nighttime again, and the bear tucks the children back into bed while the monkeys climb back into the magic plant. (While all this was going on, the seeds from the other packet have grown into large watermelons.) Wonder Bear steps into his hat and floats away, presumably into the world of picture-book history. In Brenda Z. Guiberson's "Ice Bears," we turn from fictional bears to realistic ones. Against a backdrop of beautiful swirly snow (in watercolors by Ilya Spirin), a female polar bear digs a nesting den, gives birth to twin cubs and gradually introduces them to their new world of daylight, wolves and finally the frozen ocean. (When the mother teaches her cubs to hunt, Guiberson tactfully uses the words "blubber" and "bones" rather than "killed seal.") Lemmings, mosquitoes and bumblebees share summertime with the bears until the welcome winter comes again. "Finally the ice bears can return to the ice, ready to fatten up on seals during the long cold winter ahead." In "Wonder Bear," seeds sprout into a magic plant covered with orange flowers. As that last sentence shows, it's not quite clear what age the author wants to reach. The book's size, format and sound effects - "Honk! Honk! Kree!" - seem meant for preschoolers, but grade-school statistics sometimes bump up against the story of this mother bear and her cubs. ("Slurpslurp. She nurses them often. As she loses weight, they grow plump on her rich, creamy milk that is 30 percent fat.") "Ice Bears" would work best as a firstor second-grade classroom book. It was born to inspire book reports - the kind that are taped into folders made of construction paper. The "Arctic Ice Report" at the book's end is terribly sad, but it's followed by a directory of environmental groups working to reduce global warming. Which is important, because picture books that introduce global-size fears should also equip young readers with the tools to address the problem. Despair has no place in a picture book. Grown-ups may suspect that there will never again be enough ice for the ice bears - but children can't be allowed to feel that way. Children need to believe that polar bears, with their nice eyes, will always be around if only we work a little harder. Ann Hodgman's most recent book is "The House of a Million Pets."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Lush, realistic watercolor illustrations, filling each double-page spread, accompany a brief text depicting a year in the life of a female polar bear and her two cubs in the Arctic. As winter approaches, the polar bear digs a nesting den where she will give birth to her cubs, which are born deaf, blind and almost hairless. Each weighs barely a pound. In March the family leaves the den and the cubs learn survival skills before traveling to the ocean in pursuit of their main food source, ringed seals. They encounter many other creatures along the way, but the polar bears are always the dominant feature in each dynamic spread. The final two pages feature alerts about the effect of global warming on polar bears and a list of Web sites of environmental organizations. The illustrations are lovely, including underwater scenes that are especially well rendered. The short text features enough variety and drama to keep readers engaged. This is a worthy introduction to a topic with perennial interest, especially since the species has become vulnerable.--Enos, Randall Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-This story of the struggle of a polar bear mother and her two cubs to survive introduces both the harsh conditions of the Arctic and the challenges of global warming for polar bears in general. Guiberson uses precise verbs and onomatopoeia to paint a picture of the daily activities of the bears while gracefully weaving in facts about their weight, diet, and climate. Spirin's detailed watercolors are surprisingly varied in depicting an essentially frozen world, using interesting perspectives including a close-up view inside the bears' den and a view of them peering through the ice as witnessed from below. End matter includes a call for action to slow global warming and a list of organizations to contact online. Pair this with Robert E. Wells's Polar Bear, Why Is Your World Melting? (Albert Whitman, 2008) for a science read-aloud session.-Ellen Heath, Easton Area Public Library, Easton, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) This story of growth and survival follows a pair of polar bear cubs in their first year of life. For the cubs and their mother, the focus is squarely on finding food, as enough food means that all three will grow and maintain the fat layers they need to protect themselves from the Arctic's harsh winter conditions. Guiberson subtly yet effectively emphasizes the contrast in struggling for survival in winter (when temperatures are extreme but the polar bears' adaptations are in line with the environmental conditions) versus summer (when the ice melts so much that the bears are trapped on land with limited access to their food sources and face the constant danger of overheating). While the book doesn't directly discuss the effects of global warming on the Arctic, this is the underlying issue, and it is eventually revealed in a note at the back. Spirin's expressive illustrations convey both the power and appeal of the bears, along with their habitat and the other flora and fauna of the polar region. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
