Little One

Little One

Written and illustrated by Jo Weaver

Peachtree Publishers (2016) Ages 3-5

This story is about a mother bear and her cub going through the different seasons and doing what bears do: eating berries, going through the woods, swimming, fishing, and playing.  Big Bear (the mom) is teaching her little one (the cub) all of these things as they leave their den and go exploring.

Weaver uses lots of adjectives throughout the story, such as gentle, restless, blustery. and long.  This story is written with gentle words.  It is a calming book to read.  Examples of this are-"She led her cub to the forest, where the new life was stirring among the trees." and "Together they explored far and wide."



This book has beautiful black and white pastel and graphite pictures.  The illustration that stood out to me the most for this books was of Big Bear and Little One in a grassy area and Little One is on top of Big Bear looking at and smelling the bees.  This picture really helps to define the illustrations of the book.

I would highly recommend this book to everyone.  The illustrations are amazing and this is a great book to teach kids about what a bear goes through when spring is here and what they do before winter comes.  The story is mean for early childhood students, ages 3-5.

Review by Brooke M.

Builder Mouse

Builder Mouse 

Written and Illustrated by Sofia Eldarova 

Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2016], Ages 3-6

This is a story about two mice who are friends, Edgar and Toby. Edgar loves to build things out of leftovers and Toby will always eat what Edgar built.  Edgar goes off to find a new friend who will appreciate his talents.

The author uses lots of adjectives to describe what is happening throughout the story.

The illustrations of this book are done in watercolor, pastel, and pencil.  They are bright and colorful pictures and they go along with the plot of the story.

I really enjoyed this book! It had a cute storyline and I would 100% recommend this book to others.  This is a great book that shows what friendship is really all about and would be appropriate to read with preschoolers and kindergartners.