Baby Bear Sees Blue (Baby Bear)

Inspired by the mother bear and cub in Blueberries for Sal, Wolff creates a gentel story for toddlers that introduces colors and images from the natural world.... Wolff's lovely compositions feature inked linoleum block prints that render those bears a strinkingly deep, matte black. Lush, washy watercolors illuminate the scenes--colors in the downpour's puddles reflect a rainbow. Curious Baby Bear is 100-percent toddler, and Wolff skillfully captures both the bear-ish...and the human.... Imbued with a spirit of exploration, fostered by parental protection, Baby Bear's colorful adventures will enrich repeat bedtime read-alouds.

Wolff's (Compost Stew) watercolor-tinted linocuts make each page of this story simultaneously cozy and dramatic--cozy because they star a fuzzy bear cub and his mother, and dramatic because each one contrasts dark shapes with washes of light and color. This is Baby Bear's first spring, and everything is new to him. "Who is warming me, Mama?" Baby Bear asks, clambering over his mother to get a better look at the light outside. "That is the sun," his mother tells him. At the cave entrance, golden sunbeams stream in--"Baby Bear sees yellow"--and Baby Bear is shown in silhouette as he sits just where the cave's blackness meets the light of the outside world. The line "Baby Bear sees" is repeated for the brown of a trout, the blue of a jay, the red of a strawberry, and more, linking every color to something in the natural world. Children will be absorbed by the complex textures of Wolff's linocuts, the Japanese woodblock-style graded shades of the sky, and the reassuring comfort of a world that is always safely guarded by Mama Bear. Ages 2-6. (Feb.)

Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

PreS-Gr 1--As Baby Bear and his mother amble through forest and meadow, the cub asks countless questions about his surroundings: "Who is warming me, Mama?," "Who is waving to me, Mama?," etc., and with each patient reply, "That is the sun" or "That is the oak," Baby Bear notes the color of the object in question. The story comes full circle when mother and baby return to their cave and, closing his eyes, Baby Bear seeing nothing but "deep, soft black." Luscious full-page linoleum print and watercolor illustrations delight with bright colors. Despite an abundance of books about bears and color concepts, this cozy story cleverly ties the two together. It would work well in storytimes or one on one.--Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.