Mother Goose--rather, Mother Bruce--is the laugh-out-loud funny story of a grouchy bear who reluctantly becomes the guardian of four goslings, when all he wanted to do was eat them.
"Bruce was a bear who lived all by himself. He was a grump." Bruce doesn't like sunny days, rain or even cute little animals. The one thing he does like is eggs and, after stealing them from various birds, he cooks them into fancy recipes such as "hard-boiled goose eggs drizzled with honey-salmon sauce." The ingredients for this dish are fairly easy to procure. Heading out into the wilds with his shopping cart, Bruce catches a few salmon, collects honey from a local beehive (supporting local business) and grabs Mrs. Goose by the neck to inquire if her eggs are "free-range organic." Back at home, Bruce prepares to hard-boil the eggs on the wood stove. But when he goes out to fetch kindling, he returns to an "unwelcome surprise." The four eggs on the stove have hatched into goslings, and they are all crying "MAMA!" In Ryan T. Higgins's extraordinary illustrations, the dark purple bear with his perpetually furrowed brow contrasts delightfully with the cute yellow goslings who crawl and tumble all over him. As the geese grow up and show no signs of migrating, they all bus to Miami for the winter, and in the end, a baby sea turtle hatches on the sand and inches up to one of the geese. "Mama?"
Mother Bruce never cracks a smile as he dutifully raises his new family, but young readers won't be able to hold back. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness