Little polar bear takes a stand

PreS-Gr 2-Faced with a shortage of food in a warmer and increasingly congested Arctic bay, Lars, the polar bear cub, takes matters into his own paws. As in his previous adventures, he joins up with friends to right a wrong. Isa, an arctic tern, and Bertie, a seal, dismantle a radio tower and sink the signal buoy that humans have built in the bay. Round-bodied Lars is as fuzzy and cute as ever, and his friends Bertie and Isa are cheerful and spirited. The images of the friendly animals are sometimes at odds with the action and language of the story: "In no time at all, there was nothing left of the radio station except a smoldering pile of ruins." In spite of this jarring juxtaposition, children and adults will find much to discuss in the simple story and it might inspire further conversation about taking care of our planet and different ways of making change. VERDICT Recommended for large picture book collections.-Jennifer Costa, Cambridge Public Library, MA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Little polar bear Lars is backand this time, he needs to stop humans from depleting his fishing grounds.There is nothing subtle about the intention of this book, which is to plant in the youngest generation the seeds of activism around climate change by introducing one specific example of its importance. The beauty of it is how seemingly effortlessly the artworksweet-faced, line-drawn animals against backgrounds of freezing land and water and pastel skiesand the simple, often humorous text together deliver a plot about animals using ingenuity and cooperation to chase humans from their favorite fishing haunt. On the first page, Lars' father grumbles about annually warmer springtimes, and his mother adds that, in addition to melting ice, increasing numbers of human visitors are threatening the "fishing bay." The next day, Lars disobeys his parents' rules about exploring alone and sets out to find the fishing bay. When he finds himself competing for food with Isa the bird and Robbie the seal, the animals soon realize the fault lies with too many ships rumbling through. The sweet, whimsical appearances of the animals belie their amazing abilities to figure out how to demolish a barbed-wire-protected radio station and sink a large, metal buoy. The text pointedly celebrates the property destruction as an appropriate action.Scientific facts blend seamlessly with the fantasy of literal animal activists. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.