PreS-K–Bear is sleeping soundly when a mischievous wolf comes along and steals his beloved teddy bear from his arms. Crying, Bear chases after him. When Wolf throws the teddy far away, Bear eats him in a single bite and then proceeds to look for his toy. Lion picks it up and then throws it far away as well; Bear eats him, too. When it lands in a nest, a bird picks it up and flies away...so Bear eats Bird’s two eggs. And so on until a friendly octopus finds the teddy and delivers it back to Bear. Bear then frees all the animals (including the two now-hatched baby birds) from his stomach. He goes back to sleep with his stuffed friend and all is well. The endpapers further tell the story. Children will relate to this wordless tale of losing a beloved source of comfort; Bear acts out, but the tantrum ends as soon as he is reunited with his teddy bear. Suspense builds as Bear continues to swallow the animals he encounters, but the animals are seen in cross-section inside Bear’s stomach, reassuring readers that they are alive and well. The art is lovely; the crosshatch style and color palette are unique and childlike. Dorémus depicts the animals’ emotions in gorgeous ways, such as the worry in the eyes of Lion when the eggs start hatching or the spread showing Bear under a rain cloud, mourning the loss of his teddy. This charming book is a winner.–Laura Lutz, Pratt Institute, New York City
After a wolf swipes a sleeping bear's teddy, the bear chases after him. The wolf tosses the teddy; the bear swallows the wolf, and so it goes with other animals who thwart the bear's efforts. Offsetting all this ferociousness is the delicate, etching-like art and, of course, the wordless book's kid-charming premise: that a brutish bear is undone without his teddy.
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