After exploring a polar bear cub's first yearnings of independence in Polar Bear Night, Lauren Thompson and Stephen Savage now chronicle the cub as she makes her first friend.
Author and artist once again use a spare text and graphic shapes to stellar effect, as the furry heroine leaves her sleeping mother to follow the call of the seagulls and investigate her surroundings. Steven Savage's linocut illustrations move from the icy blues of the cold polar region to the pink light of dawn in an aerial view of the seagulls circling above the cub: "The polar bear cub watches, wondering." Her curiosity leads her to "a snowy something" tumbling down a hill. The polar cub comes snout to snout with a "snow cub," its fur frosted with snowflakes. As the pair scamper and sprint, they pass other creatures from the previous book: a family of seals, a walrus. Together the cubs jump into the sea, and a stunning array of blue and teal hues shows the sun's rays penetrating the surface and the bears' synchronized trail of bubbles.
When they come up for air, the heroine's mother watches from the shore. The whale and seals, too, surround the polar bear cub and her snow cub friend, in a lovely echo of the stars that "light up everything the little bear loves" in Polar Bear Night. Thompson and Savage beautifully capture the feeling that friendship opens up a whole new world under a "wide, blue sky." --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness