Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 09/01/2014 As Bear strolls outdoors, his friend Mouse rides along on top of his head. Suddenly Bear sees blue! / Blue flowers / by the trail. / Blue berries. / Blue pail. / Blue, blue, EVERYWHERE! / Can you spy blue with Bear? It’s an invitation that young children will find hard to resist, assuming they know their colors. And if they don’t, a few strolls though the book with Bear, Mouse, and their woodland friends will bring them up to speed. Wilson juggles rhythm and rhyme with ease in verses celebrating blue, red, green, yellow, and (for a nice change) brown. The engaging text leaves plenty of room for audience participation, while the large-scale, colorful acrylic paintings show up well from a distance. Like Ashley Wolff’s Baby Bear Sees Blue (2012), this addition to Wilson and Chapman’s Bear series is a fine color-themed picture book for reading aloud in the home or the classroom. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 07/01/2014 PreS—Children will love accompanying Bear on yet another adventure as he and Mouse go walking. "So much for them to do./And the bear/sees…." A page turn reveals the two friends splashing in a setting saturated in the color name that completes the rhyme—blue! "Blue flowers/by the trail./Blue berries./Blue pail." Since not all the objects in the beautiful spread are named, readers can take up the invitation issued here and in similar challenges throughout the book: "Can you spy blue with Bear?" Bear and Mouse meet, in turn, their familiar cast of animal friends: Hare, Badger, Gopher and Mole, and Raven, Owl, and Wren. Each time, a page turn depicts a scene replete with a new color as Bear and his friends enjoy the forest. Especially alert preschoolers will discover an additional hint of what color comes next from the insects he sees. Red ladybugs, for example, fly about the page before the animals cavort amid red berries and flowers on the next spread. While some rhymes don't quite work, this is a very small quibble. The large acrylic paintings, in which even the backgrounds are drenched in the highlighted color, and the opportunity for children to sharpen their rhyming and observation skills as well as learn their colors make this interactive journey a must. Don't miss it!—Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.