Bad Bears Go Visiting: An Irving & Muktuk Story (review)

Everyone loves the Bad Bears—but imagine if they showed up at your front door. In this fourth adventure of the dauntless duo, Irving and Muktuk are taught the art of visiting by their friend Larry, who comes to visit one night and stays for cake with little fishes on it, a game of volleyball, and some pleasant chatting. Irving and Muktuk are thus convinced that "visits are nice," so after yet another successful nighttime escape from the zoo, they opt to mix things up a bit by taking up the pastime themselves and visiting the home of Steve, Loretta, and little Sylvia Beachball. The ensuing antics as Irving and Muktuk put their visiting skills to good use are all the more hilarious for the guests' most noble intentions, and kids will especially love the idea that chatting pleasantly can be fun and not just an activity in which adults engage to make children suffer while they wait. Using her customary felt-tip markers and ink, Jill Pinkwater gives center stage to the two amorphous yet shapely furballs; the new socialites stand out brilliantly in their black-fringed whiteness. The fairly imperturbable sweatshirt- and slipper-clad Beachballs are a softly colorful bunch, in contrast with the sketchy ursine strangers who squeeze through their door. Wryly understated dialogue calls for a comic readaloud, but the humor found in the snappy text and the expressive eyes exchanging alternately cunning or contented glances could be divined by individual readers as well. Keep a copy of this one on your coffee table, and keep a cake with little fishes on top in your kitchen, just in case some visitors decide to drop by.