The Kiss Box
This Little Bear isn’t the same one made famous by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak, nor is he Martin Waddell’s Little Bear, but he is certainly of the same ilk as those beloved characters. Similar in tone and theme to Minarik’s classic series, this is for slightly younger readers, and it is a bit simpler with a briefer text. The focus here is on Little Bear and Mama Bear and their upcoming separation (Mama Bear must go out for the afternoon). Softly colored pencil-and-watercolor illustrations portray bucolic, quotidian scenes: Mama Bear pushing Little Bear on a swing, the two fishing together, a picnic in a field. Throughout, Mama Bear reassures Little Bear: “‘I will think about you all the time,’ said his mama, ‘no matter where I am or what I do.’” Together they work out a solution for his separation anxiety: something to carry kisses in. The “Storyteller’s Note” at the end makes explicit what many parental readers will already have surmised—that the kiss box is as helpful for mamas as it is for the cubs they miss. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Diane Foote