ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT BEARS.

A story about a bear begins...but the bear has had enough.

The “old brown bear” derails the story, much to the narrator’s perturbation, and proclaims that bears are exhausted by constantly having to “perform” all these stories whenever “you” open a book, when they’d rather be “sleeping, snoozing or napping.” Bears quit! At first, the narrator gets even by reciting ridiculous antics for the bear to act out, like wearing a tutu while riding a tiny bicycle. The bear makes an offer—get another, “better” animal star. But the narrator dismisses all the candidates the bear puts forth, citing certain flaws for each. An echidna’s “too spiky,” a dodo “too extinct,” a star-nosed mole “too…whoa!” Once the bear runs through all the animals in its contacts, the narrator claims bears are the natural stars for stories because they “are just right.” They strike a compromise: The bear gets to hibernate while some other animals take over key roles in the tale of “Goldilocks & the Three Bears.” This metanarrative is made especially entertaining by its conversational tone. Two easily distinguishable, but not fussily designed, text styles demarcate the two speakers of the book. The art is reminiscent of Jon Klassen’s, with the animals in predominantly static poses against plain backgrounds, but with stronger colors. The creatures are highly geometric in shape, and their perfectly round eyes manage to convey heaps of emotions. The inclusion of some nonstandard animals in the cast also helps to sustain interest.

Bear-y fun.