A Bear And His Boy

Happy Wednesday!    Time for another Easy Picture Books roundup and I have three really cute ones for you today.      A Bear And His Boy caught my attention last week and proved to be utterly delightful.    One morning a very ‘type A’ bear with a hugely jam packed schedule wakes up to find that there is a boy on his head.   The bear and the boy proceed through their busy, busy day.    In the end the boy persuades the bear to stop for awhile and smell the lilacs.    Sean Bryan’s cleverly rhymed text and Tom Murphy’s simple, delightful illustrations make A Bear And His Boy a must read for the pre-school set.    Highly Recommended.

Charlie Cook’s Favorite Book is a wonderful children’s story by author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler.   Charlie is curled up in a chair with his favorite book,  a story about pirates and a pirate who finds a book in a treasure chest.   This book proves to be about a girl named Goldilocks and three indignant bears.   Goldilocks takes to reading the youngest bear’s favorite book, a story about knights and dragons.   The knight conquers the dragon by reading him jokes from his favorite book.  Where will it ever end?   Why with a ghost who is reading her favorite book,  about a boy named Charlie Cook.   Eleven delightful books in one,  a very clever page-turner.   Highly Recommended.

From her treehouse at Frog Song Pond in Gorham, Maine  naturalist Cathryn Falwell observes all of the wild life at the pond on a sunny summer day.   Skillfully blending science, literature and illustration  Scoot! is a little story about six turtles sleeping on a log in the pond when a strong wind comes and blows them away.   I thought it was neat the way Falwell manages to convey so much information about her neighboring flora and fauna,  though the book is clearly lacking in plot and the illustrations are in a busy, busy style that just didn’t seem quite right to me.    Not Recommended.