Review Detail

A Best Friend for Bear

Kids Fiction 157

If a bear hides in the forest, will his friend find him?

July 04, 2024

Overall rating

4.3

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

5.0

Black Bear would like to have a friend, so he goes out into the forest to try to find one. He meets Brown Bear, who is, coincidentally, trying to find a friend as well! The two decide to work together to find a friend, and search all over, to no avail. They eventually start a rousing game of hide and go seek, and take turns finding each other. When Brown Bear hides particularly well, Black Bear is disappointed. When Brown Bear surprises his seeker by greeting him from atop a branch in a tree, the two decide that perhaps friends are easier to find than they had hoped. After all, looking for a friend was much more fun with someone else.

Good Points

The mixed media illustrations are very colorful, and the dark tones in the woods are particularly well rendered. There's something about the bears' faces that makes me think about a children's book from the 1960s, a Whitman's Tell A Tale story, about a boy going into the woods and befriending a bear who was perhaps imaginary, but I can't think of the title. There is definitely a familiar, feel good air to the illustration style!

Young readers will recognize that the bears are being a little bit silly, and should just be friends with each other, but watching them go about their quest is still a fun journey. The only thing that they missed doing was to have a picnic! Of course, today's children probably don't know that old song.

Learning how to find friends and to keep them is a developmental task that young children seem to struggle with, so this is a good book to encourage them to look around them at people they might already know, and perhaps make friends that are hiding in plain sight! Pair this with other titles that explore the vagaries of friendship like Martin and Aserr's How to Make a Friend, Bailey and Song's A Friend for Henry, Percival's Meesha Makes Friends, and Napoli and Stoop's Words to Make a Friend.