Scare a Bear

From the team behind Moose on the Loose comes another story about a renegade forest animal. Five friends at a campground notice a sign on a tree that reads, "Do you know how to scare a bear?" and discover the answer--no--when one shows up. Though his goofy, overgrown appearance isn't especially threatening (by book's end, he's wearing a red baseball cap), he's just naturalistic enough to be unsettling, especially when he goes snout-to-nose with a redheaded girl in pigtails. Becoming a furry nuisance, the bear joins them in their rowboat ("What if that bear wants to fish from your boat?/ Do you think he would fit?/ Would you tell him to sit?"), sits down at a picnic table for dinner, and even joins in a sleepover, taking a belly flop onto a top bunk. In the end, though, the kids discover that it's pretty simple to scare a bear with a single word, "Boo!" The attention and detail Bendall-Brunello lavishes on the bear doesn't carry over to the kids he antagonizes, but the fish-out-of-water slapstick should get some chuckles. Ages 48. (May) Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

PreS-Gr 1—he creative team behind "Moose on the Loose"(Sleeping Bear, 2009) has produced another humorous animal escapade. The text begins with a notice pinned to a tree: "Do you know how to scare a bear?" and continues with bouncy rhymes acted out by children: "Would you bang pots and pans?/Would you rattle some cans?/Would you shout?/Would you yell?/Would you ring a loud bell?" The bear becomes bolder and the text accelerates until finally the youngsters scare it into running off the page. The colorful cartoonlike pictures are energetic and full of detail, such as a moose on the loose on several pages. A fun read-aloud.—"Carrie Rogers-Whitehead, Kearns Library, UT" Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.