Review: The bear facts
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
Two of our favorite national parks are Yellowstone and Grand Teton, where my wife and I have visited several times. Some of the most fascinating but elusive animals that my wife and I look for are the grizzlies and black bears. We've seen a few of them, but our encounters were usually very brief and at a distance. Emma Child's book of bear facts and photos wasn't as good as seeing a bear in person, but it was a lot safer, and it did satisfy some of my curiosity about these remarkable animals.I learned that there are eight kinds of bears, with most bears living in the northern hemisphere. Most bears are omnivores that eat both meat and plants. The giant panda is a bear. A mother bear is called a sow, and a father bear is called a boar. The American black bear is the most common kind of bear. The book is full of facts like these.The second half of the book describes different species of bears, including their range, what they eat, and other interesting facts. My favorite? It's hard not to pick the giant panda bear that lives in the mountains of south-central China. The book concludes with factoids about bears. Among other things, I learned that koala bears are not bears at all - they're actually marsupials, related to kangaroos.It's a nice introduction to bears for young children, especially those who have never seen one of these creatures except in a zoo.