The Bear Who Came to Stay

Woodman, Allen; Kirby, David K.

ISBN 10: 0027933970 ISBN 13: 9780027933970

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1994

Synopsis

A bear moves into a family's house, starts acting like the humans, and forces them to leave.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 2-Silly is the only word for this story of a family's turned-around summer. When a bear walks nonchalantly through the back door one morning, a little girl and her parents welcome him with lots of hospitality. Although Dad offers him salmon and strawberries, the bear prefers potato chips and chocolate cake, and he would much rather take in a soap-opera wedding (tissues in paw) than watch the animal show that Mom suggests. As the creature adapts to human ways, the family becomes increasingly bearlike. Finally, the people move out, opting to spend the summer catching fish with their bare hands and hanging out in the bear's cave. Meanwhile, the bear has learned to drive and is wearing the father's clothes to work. When the leaves turn, the family decides that they miss life as humans and arrive home to find the bear listlessly watching television. He simply gives them all a farewell lick and disappears into the forest. Although Stevenson's exuberant watercolors add touches of humor that the story lacks, the action does not flow smoothly. The premise has potential to be truly funny, but children will be distracted by so many unexplained details. John Himmelman's A Guest Is a Guest (Dutton, 1991) is a better story about humans and animals changing places.
Lisa S. Murphy, formerly at Dauphin County Library System, Harrisburg, PA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Three people gradually but enthusiastically reverse roles with a bear in this insubstantial story. "A bear came to our house one morning in the spring," states the narrator. As she and her parents look on, the cuddly bear eats chocolate cake, brushes its teeth and savors soap operas on TV. Not to be outdone, the humans venture into the wilderness, where they catch fish in the river, eat honey and sleep in a cave. Autumn arrives all too soon, however, and the forest-exchange program comes to a close; the narrator and her folks return to their house, where the bear has grown nostalgic for the woods. Woodman and Kirby, coauthors of The Cows Are Going to Paris , provide an unrhymed, deadpan text, while Stevenson's ( Little Rabbit Goes to Sleep ; Gone Fishing ) cheery watercolors communicate the family's enjoyment of undomesticated freedom. The book's high quotient of cuteness, however, doesn't substitute for obvious deficiencies in the plot--namely, the absence of any reason for bear and humans to swap habitats. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0027933970
• ISBN 13: 9780027933970
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Stevenson Harvey