BEARS IN THE FOREST

A dull account of a year in the lives of two bear cubs and their mother. In Wallace's (Red Fox, p. 1140) latest addition to the Read and Wonder series, tepid illustrations accompany a wan description of the three bears' year in the forest. We follow the bear mother and her cubs as they eat and grow, hibernate and fish. Unfortunately, we rarely learn anything truly interesting. (At least, not after the author's note at the beginning, which informs us that black bears come in a variety of colors.) Beneath the pictures, small, confusing captions distract the reader's attention from what is already a lifeless text. These factoids might have been more productively incorporated into the text itself rather than free-floating on the bottom of the page. Better than the rest of the book are the sketches by Firth inside the covers, where the bears are seen minus their candy-coloring and without Wallace's bland commentary. A good idea executed with neither flair nor feeling. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 3+)