Baby Bear by Kadir Nelson (review)

Baby Bear is lost and seeks help in finding his way home from a variety of animals. Each offers slightly different advice, from the Squirrels, who advise him to “hug a tree and think of home,” to the Ram who suggests climbing up high for a better view and singing a song to lift his spirits, to the Salmon who agrees to actually show him the way, providing Baby Bear promises not to eat him, and leads him back home. The gentle cadences of the animals’ voices and the large, dream-like illustrations in deep twilight tones make this suitable for bedtime reading or for an evening story hour. Unfortunately, some of the animals’ advice is sentimental and clichéd (the Moose offers, “When I am lost, I sit very still and try to listen to my heart. It speaks as softly and sweetly as a gentle breeze. And it is never wrong”), and Baby Bear’s slow progress, a result of the largely abstract advice he receives, gets a bit tedious. Nelson’s artwork, done in oil paint on canvas, is thoughtfully composed with unusual perspectives (extreme close-ups of some of the animals, viewpoints that are above or below Baby Bear), giving the pictures a fresh originality. Some illustrations are plasticky in their stiff glossiness, but others are lovely—the nearly glowing snowy owl perched in a dark tree seems almost ethereal. Nature-loving youngsters may nonetheless enjoy this journey, and it could easily be paired with Root’s Oliver Finds His Way (BCCB 2/02) for a duo of lost bear books.