Review by New York Times Review
ONE OF THE harder lessons of parenthood is that children often have terrible taste. You play Bjork, but they prefer the soundtrack to "My Little Pony." You show them "My Neighbor Totoro," but they'd rather watch "Turbo." Or maybe it's just my kids. We can't help impressing upon our progeny our own values and politics, but it's harder by far to inculcate in your kids your sense of aesthetics. We may wish they would ratify our own coolness, but the truth is that no baby alive needs to wear a Sonic Youth onesie. It's more likely to be Raffi than the Rolling Stones who teaches them to love art. To create a book that will satisfy both children and adults is a tall order. Still, I'm skeptical of the current vogue in picture books for self-awareness: stories about the act of storytelling, texts conscious of themselves as texts. A dose of irony is right for the times in which we live, but it can feel too much like a bid for the attention of the people who pay for books instead of the kid they're going to read to. The Portuguese writer Isabel Minhós Martins's "Don't Cross the Line!" is undoubtedly cool. In the story - such as it is - a loudmouthed general orders one of his underlings to keep people from crossing the book's gutter. The narrative tension relies on understanding that in languages that read left to right it's the right-hand page that draws our attention. But it's not essential to grasp that this is how books function. Bernardo P. Carvalho's cleverly rendered characters (two boys and a soccer ball, a ghost, an alien, an astronaut) fill the facing page, and are wholly charming. The poor soldier, outnumbered, stands down; the crowd rushes across the page, and his commander is displeased, then deposed. It's gratifying to see the petty tyrant tossed from his horse, though I suspected the book's meta-cleverness was meaningless to my 7- and 4-year-old sons. It is enchanting to study the illustrations; it's less a reading experience than a looking one. To that end, I found myself wishing the soldiers didn't carry guns. There are some things kids never need to see. Bob Shea's "The Happiest Book Ever!" is similarly interested in visual stimulus more than storytelling. Its pages feature a cartoon face, the embodiment of the book itself; the book is its own narrator, and its only aim is to be as happy as the title promises. Thus, it urges the reader to applaud, to give the volume a shake, to tell it jokes. The more the reader does this, the happier the pages become, as measured by the way the blank space fills with various funny illustrations (and one stubbornly unhappy frog that it's the reader's mission to cheer up). But of course, the book doesn't need the child reader's participation: It needs the parents'. It's one of those works a grown-up must understand before diving into; it's imperative to nail the narrator's hectoring tone, to make the kid you're reading to understand that call and response is in order. If you perfect your delivery, it's a book that will be a big hit. A self-referential twist is fine but works best when leavened with something - humor, magic, warmth. Jon Stone's now decades-old "The Monster at the End of This Book," illustrated by Michael Smollin, is a meta-storybook that is also a very funny story. It's about "Sesame Street's" Grover and his fear of the titular monster, who is revealed, of course, to be him. Authored by the show's first head writer, it's the rare television tie-in that's also a great book. Stone's story works because kids understand monsters, and fear, and because Grover's increasing panic as the pages turn is so silly. Maggie Tokuda-Hall's "Also an Octopus; Or, A Little Bit of Nothing" is concerned with the nature of storytelling itself - far more abstract than fuzzy monsters. "Every story starts the same way," Tokuda-Hall tells us, "with nothing." Fair enough. The payoff for an adult reading a child's book is in the child's reaction. Tokuda-Hall's tale of an octopus (quite darling, in the illustrator Benji Davies's rendering) building a spaceship out of waffles made my kids laugh hysterically. There's no sweeter sound; I wanted to take the shortest route possible to that moment of joy, and would have happily skipped the crash course on narrative that frames it. LeUyen Pham seems to me a writer and illustrator who is mindful of the younger members of her audience. Her illustrations are cartoonish and cute, even if they didn't appeal to me the way that Bernardo P. Carvalho's did. He created a book that wouldn't be out of place in a museum gift shop, while Pham takes a more traditional approach. But this book isn't trying to meet my aesthetic requirements; my younger kid was entranced from the get-go. The story of "The Bear Who Wasn't There" is, as you might guess, about the missing bear. There's an ark's worth of animals - a wiseacre duck, a misbehaving mouse - and they're either helpful or not on the quest to locate the bear. The story underscores the artifice of a book, with creatures pulling down the pages, running from one to the next, and even the author herself making an appearance, in cartoon form. It sounds ponderous but is hilarious. There's some wordplay that made my kids laugh so hard we had to stop for four minutes and savor it. A book that can appeal to readers big and small in equal measure seems miraculous to me. Crockett Johnson's "Harold and the Purple Crayon" shows how a meta-text, a book about the power of the page, can manage this. When you're 3, the thrill is in how Harold can turn a simple circle into a lifesaving hot-air balloon. When you're 30, introducing Harold to a child you love, the thrill is in seeing how smart a book it actually is. Tricky narrative strategies may feel very of-the-moment, but Johnson's book is 61 years old. The essential question to ask yourself is simply this: When you bring a book into your home, whom is it for? RUMAAN ALAM is the author of the novel "Rich and Pretty."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 13, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
What to do when the featured character of the story the titular bear is missing? An eager mallard seizes the chance for his moment in the spotlight, dismissing bears as irresponsible and hawking his own story, The Duck Who Showed Up. Despite many diversions, a wildly diverse and abundant cast of animals continues their search for the bear even the author-illustrator shows up. At one point, the whole horde of creatures gathers across two pages to make sure there is no bear among them, though most of the pages provide an uncluttered narrative. While reminiscent of books like Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (2003) and Kelly Bingham's Z Is for Moose (2012), this has its own personality with numerous animals making cameos a giraffe on a toilet, a moose about to be sawed in two, a boar, and a bare hare, to name a few. When you have plenty of crisply colored characters imbued with spirited temperaments and an interactive, engaging text, who needs a bear? Perhaps the mallard makes his point.--Enos, Randall Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite the title, the increasingly frustrated narrator of this lighthearted metafictional tale clearly expects a bear to show up: there are bear footprints all over the pages. But the other animal characters (plus one tree) are no help whatsoever. They include a spotlight-hogging duck who is busy shilling his own book, The Duck Who Showed Up; a prankster mouse; and a turtle wearing a fake bird's beak over his nose. "Where is the Author?" the narrator finally demands as the silliness escalates, but even though she dutifully appears (and bears a striking resemblance to Pham), she seems a little confused herself. "Did I draw all this?" she says, taking in the goofball characters who fill the spread margin to margin. "Man, I have been busy." The extensive repertoire of perplexed expressions, combined with lots of smart-alecky humor and sight gags (including a very funny, bear-shaped "bird pyramid" with the aforementioned turtle at its base) should leave readers feeling like they're in on a very clever joke. Ages 3-6. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-The author/illustrator draws inspiration from the one thing that has been missing from all of her previous work: a bear. All parts of the book, from the case cover to the inside front and back covers to the title page, make light of the absence of the bear. The text is metafictional, calling attention to itself and even bringing Pham in as a character late in the tale. Much of the narrative is told through dialogue in which a cast of animal characters provide information about the bear's whereabouts and suggestions for where to find it. Anticipation builds with each page turn and every new animal who appears. The large cast includes aliens, armadillos, koalas, sloths, dinosaurs, zebras, and more. The author speaks directly to readers in a tone that is fun and light. The mixed-media art supports the humor by depicting cartoon animals who have exaggerated features and exhibit many human actions, such as standing on two legs, drinking out of a straw, using a toilet and a bathtub, and performing acts of magic, while the search for the bear takes place. The ending offers readers the payoff they were waiting for. VERDICT This witty picture book is perfect for storytime.-Samantha Lumetta, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH © Copyright 2016. 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
A large cast of cartoon animals (including a self-involved duck, a mischievous mouse, plus the author herself) help an unseen narrator search for a bear who isn't anywhere in the book...or is he? With each witty page turn, both the suspense and silliness build as the text, speech-bubble conversations, and dynamic illustrations play off one another in a captivating metafictional romp. (c) Copyright 2017. 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.
