A Birthday for Bear (at last!)
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 09:44PM 
Bear and Mouse (small and gray and bright-eyed, of course) are back, just in time to celebrate Bear's birthday--whether Bear wants to or not, in A Birthday for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (Candlewick, 2009). We first met Bear and Mouse in last year's picture book A Visitor for Bear, which won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Now the unlikely pair returns in an early reader from Candlewick Sparks.
The early reader format makes sense for Bear and Mouse, who are literary descendants of Frog and Toad, and it suits Becker's storytelling here as well. While I miss the spaciousness and surprises of Visitor, Mouse's attempts to deliver balloons, a present, and finally a chocolate cake to Bear in Birthday fall nicely into short chapters. Spoiler alert: The cake succeeds! I'm not sure about the present, though.
Interestingly, the next Bear and Mouse book, A Bedtime for Bear (Spring 2010), will be another picture book. From Becker's website: "Bear has Mouse over for Bear’s first ever sleep over. But in order to sleep, Bear must have quiet, absolute quiet. To Bear’s great frustration and growing annoyance, Mouse is far from quiet as a… well, you know." I sort of wish that everyone involved had chosen one format or the other and stuck with it. My vote would be for the picture book, but A Birthday for Bear is a great choice for newly independent readers...and you can read it aloud, too.
Reader Comments (5)
I would put this on hold, but then I would have to go to Central (sigh). :) Sounds cute. We have a lot of birthday talk around here!!
I have only just done a post on A Visitor For Bear on our blog. So excited to now see A Birthday for Bear. The illustrations are so beautiful.
I missed A Visitor for Bear last year. I will look for both that one and A Birthday for Bear. Thanks for the recommendations!
We love A Visitor for Bear and I didn't know there was a new book, thank you for posting about it! Letting Nana know asap!
I attended Becker's reading a few Saturdays ago and got A Birthday for Bear signed. She's local, it turns out.