MOON IN BEAR'S EYES

A slice-of-life look at a mother grizzly and her two cubs in Yellowstone National Park. After a winter’s hibernation, a grizzly “explodes in a shower of snow from the entrance of its den,” followed by two three-month-old cubs. Mother grizzly adjusts to the light, reads the wind, and initiates the search for food. She sates herself on roots and bulbs, pulls a ground squirrel from its hole, and spies a hawk without great action. The face of a boar grizzly then significantly fills the page, and mother grizzly confronts the young male over an elk carcass, fighting to protect her cubs with snapping jaw and slashing claws until the male bolts into the woods. Readers interested enough to follow a grizzly through a typical day may pick up tidbits of information along the way, but the overall search for food never emerges as a real story. Snowy landscapes deepened by red sunsets give way to the green, flowering meadows of April in Yellowstone, the perfect naturalistic scenery for outdoor panoramas showcasing the shaggy-coated creatures nuzzling, hunting, loping, tussling, and resting. The horizontal spreads are broken only by left and right hand blocks of text set against a light beige background imitative of aspen bark—a nice touch. An extensive author’s note outlines size, characteristics, and habitat; a list of further reading includes two bear web sites. (Picture book. 5-8)