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(More customer reviews)This warmly illustrated book is of the "nature can be cruel" school most famously seen in Disney-produced documentaries of the 1960's (that whole food cycle bird-eats-snake-that-just-ate-a-rat that's the way it is genre). There's nothing inherently wrong with this; in fact, Rockwell and illustrator Halsey are factual and their story is fascinating. However, don't get this expecting a cozy, lulling bedtime story--unless your little one gets soporific at the thought of mothers instintively abandoning their offspring.
The ochre backgrounds and foliage do feel soft; however, as does the young, hungry cub. His mother shows him "how to dig for roots and grubs to eat." Over to the left of this 2-page spread, we see soft blue robbins' eggs "alone in a nest." Look out robbins! These were "very speacial treats." Like the bears' predatory habits, the mother-cub relationship is established early: "If the bear strayed too far from his mother, she gave him scolding grunts." The bears grows up, getting bigger and wiser thanks to his mom. However, there comes a time when mother bears leave their now-independent younger ones. There are no promises to visit in the Spring or singing daffodils: One morning, the cub's mother wouldn't play with him. Instead she grunted fiercely and cuffed his nose.
Wisely, Halsey doesn't over-cute or otherwise anthropomorphize the young bear; we see a bear possessed of bear intelligence and emotions, not human ones that young readers might easily identify with (although this might happen anyway). THis is fortunate, because the next few scenes describe the bear crying for his mother, hearing a loud crash when workers cut down a tree they used to climb. The cub climbs another tree, "crying and crying, but his mother didn't come back. That's the way it is when bear cubs get big."
Suburban Renewal
The trees come down because the forest must be cleared for new houses, and the cub wanders down to a backyard, where a toddler excitedly calls "Bah!," because that's what he calls his teddy bear. (In her informative Afterward, Rockwell describes how clearing forests in her state of Connecticut increased bear sightings in backyards and malls. While offering some practical tips--cleaning fallen fruit, using bear-proof garbage containers--she doesn't suggest restricting construction, only than that we should "keep bears in the wild woods, where they belong." However, a political discussion is really beyond the scope and audience of this book!)
A realisitically frightened mother brings her boy inside and calls the state game warden, while a neighbor's dog barks at the beleagured bear. Lured by marshmellows, the bear is trapped and shot with tranquilizers by two (friendly-looking) wardens, and he is returned to a new home, full of nuts, acorns, trees, and a cave where he will hibernate during the winter--just as he's done every year since birth. Anne Rockwell (in the Afterward) responsibly points out the difference between the smaller black bears of her story, and the larger, more aggressive grizzly bears of the West. ALthough I loved the beautifully shaded, soft pictures, and the fiction/fact combination, this is not a bear story for everyone. Young naturalists will enjoy it. You can review Rockwell's other nature books at her website www.annerockwell.com.
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