The husband-and-wife team behind the Caldecott Medal–winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee presents another inspiring tale of friendship and collaboration.
As the book begins, Bear rubs his eyes while autumn leaves float down around him: "It was almost winter and Bear was getting sleepy." Against a spare white background where birch tree trunks and golden-leaved maples stretch off the top of the page, he walks with a mission: "Bear had a story to tell." One by one, the ursine hero asks his friends if they want to hear his tale. "I am sorry, Bear," says Mouse, dwarfed by Bear's height and girth, "but it is almost winter and I have many seeds to gather." Bear helps Mouse gather seeds, then bids his friend farewell as Mouse tunnels underground "to wait for spring." He helps Duck find a southerly wind, and digs a "frog-size hole" in which to tuck Frog safely for the winter.
Erin Stead alters her style here. Instead of pencil and woodblock prints, she uses a pencil and watercolor wash technique that allows her to add detailed touches such as pine needles on a bough, and the light and dark patches of Bear's chocolate brown coat. Thus she gives Bear an emotional richness. He appears pensive as he looks off in the distance and thinks, "I wonder if Mole is awake?" As the story progresses, the pencil drawings of naked trees make winter look imminent. As Bear calls down Mole's hole, readers must turn the book to appreciate the vertical orientation of the composition, and the depths of Mole's tunneling. At the bottom, Mole is already asleep. (" 'Good night, Mole,' said Bear with a sigh.") The first snowfall fills the entire horizontal spread, a vision in cornflower blue and violet with white (and a few yellow) circles dotting the sky. Bear's skyward look of wonder mirrors our own, and on the next page Bear himself is sound asleep.
With the first signs of spring, Bear rolls on his back in the sunshine and the sky is a teal green. As he welcomes his friends back, he gives each a gift--an acorn for Mouse, a muddy puddle for Duck, a sunny patch for Frog. And each, in turn, gives Bear a gift. Erin Stead's visual clues to the cycles of the seasons echo Philip Stead's lilting circular construction of the narrative. Together they celebrate the ebb and flow of friendship and its endless gifts. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: The Caldecott Medal–winning team behind A Sick Day for Amos McGee creates a new tale of friendship and togetherness through the changing seasons.