ISBN 0807589330 - The mostly blue cover illustration of my copy is ugly and, because that's ugly, I took my time getting around to opening the book. A Where's Waldo-esque book for very young children, I had hope that Where is the Bear? might exceed my expectations, but it just barely met them.
Each two-page spread features a setting in which a bear is hidden. A short rhyme mentions some of what is visible in the setting and the reader is asked to find the bear.
Author Bonnie Larkin Nims's text is, at times, clunky. The rhymes just don't flow well and the the non-rhyming request that the reader find the bear throws off any attempt at a rhyming rhythm. The illustrations, on the other hand, are superb. The team of John and Alex Wallner did a fantastic job. The images are vibrant and the bear is sometimes very well hidden. Some of the amusing touches really caught my eye, like the street sweeper with a pushcart, the mayonnaise jars that are larger than a turkey, and the folks picnicking in one puddle-strewn image. One thing that helps hide the bear that isn't a positive thing is that the bear doesn't seem to exist on the same plane all the time. He's in a stroller, looking "human-like" and then he's a drawing on the side of a truck. This makes the hiding of the bear somewhat unfairly slanted - the reader can't use any form of logic in searching because there's no way to know, from page to page, if the bear is alive, a toy, or a drawing. It's an okay book with really good illustrations that I wouldn't go out of my way to acquire.
- AnnaLovesBooks
Each two-page spread features a setting in which a bear is hidden. A short rhyme mentions some of what is visible in the setting and the reader is asked to find the bear.
Author Bonnie Larkin Nims's text is, at times, clunky. The rhymes just don't flow well and the the non-rhyming request that the reader find the bear throws off any attempt at a rhyming rhythm. The illustrations, on the other hand, are superb. The team of John and Alex Wallner did a fantastic job. The images are vibrant and the bear is sometimes very well hidden. Some of the amusing touches really caught my eye, like the street sweeper with a pushcart, the mayonnaise jars that are larger than a turkey, and the folks picnicking in one puddle-strewn image. One thing that helps hide the bear that isn't a positive thing is that the bear doesn't seem to exist on the same plane all the time. He's in a stroller, looking "human-like" and then he's a drawing on the side of a truck. This makes the hiding of the bear somewhat unfairly slanted - the reader can't use any form of logic in searching because there's no way to know, from page to page, if the bear is alive, a toy, or a drawing. It's an okay book with really good illustrations that I wouldn't go out of my way to acquire.
- AnnaLovesBooks
