Old Bear written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes is a peaceful story about the miraculous progression of the four seasons as viewed by a wonderful old bear.
                  By the time Old Bear
                  fell asleep for the winter,
                  it was snowing hard.
                  Soon he was dreaming.
Old Bear’s dreams take him back to his days as a little brown bear cub.  He relives the joy of a spring filled with trees and flowers.  As he continues his long sleep he dreams of his first summer when, as the author writes, “the sun was a daisy, and the leaves were little butterflies.”  This sleep takes Old Bear back to fall and then into winter before he wakes up from his dream to see it is spring again and he is no longer a cub.

Defining Feature: Henkes’ charming pictures give the story a rich context.  Spring is filled with tulips and daffodils and with bear cub asleep in the petals of a crocus.  Summer is painted with imaginative details such as bear cub catching blueberries on his tongue as they are falling down from the clouds.  Autumn finds bear cub sitting under a tree by a stream as leaves and fish of golden orange and reddish brown go by.  And winter is dressed in an icy night all crisp and beautiful.  Bear cub is looking at the night sky bursting with colorful light from the many-splendored stars.  This is an outstanding illustration.

The pictures are done in watercolor paint and ink by artist Henkes, who recently won the Caldecott Award for Kitten’s First Moon.  The artist’s image of Old Bear fills the front cover with a big cozy persona as he walks through autumn and into winter with leaves tumbling amidst scattered dots of snowflakes.  The inside covers are nicely decorated with brown leaves drawn on the inside front cover and flowers drawn on the inside back cover.  Children will enjoy the overall attractiveness of this book including the images, color, bold letters and weight of the pages.

Old Bear written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes is ideal for children 3 to 6 years of age (published by Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins Publishers August 19, 2008).

This is Sue Ann Martin for Children’s Books. . .The Dean’s List

Discussion Questions for Old Bear

Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression is Kate Lied’s family reflection on her grandparent’s hardships, and it comes appropriately packaged for contemporary children in a shiny burlap-like cover with potato-grain pages.

As the Depression begins, Kate’s grandparents and her young aunt Dorothy do not find life easy on their Iowa farm. Her grandfather loses two jobs, and the bank forecloses on their home. Hearing tales of potatoes to pick in Idaho, they borrow a car and some gas money, and the family strikes out. They do, indeed, find work. They live in a tent and pick potatoes for a farmer all day long, and then are allowed to go back into the fields at night to pick potatoes which they can keep for themselves to sell. They return to Iowa, laden down with potatoes which they trade for groceries, for clothes, and even for a pig. They work hard and save. Later Kate’s grandparents move to Washington, D. C. and then to Hawaii, where two more children are born. To both of them young Dorothy tells stories about her adventures picking potatoes “by the light of the moon.”

Kate concludes her family Tale from the Great Depression with the lighthearted suggestion that perhaps “all this could be how I have come to like potatoes.”  Kate Lied has told her story simply, introducing young readers to the Depression of the 1930’s, a time in history that some family members may still be able to remember and discuss.  The straightforward lines of Lisa Campbell Ernst’s colorful illustrations with the bright, hopeful, and expressive faces of characters and changing scenery match the text well and will hold the attention of young audiences aged five to eight.

Kate Lied.  Illus. by Lisa Campbell Ernst.  Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression.  Washington, D. C.: National Geographic, 1997.

Discussion Questions for Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression