Bigby Bear

Gr 3-6-In Coudray's newest compendium of comics, Bigby Bear and his forest friends apply scientific, mathematical, and artistic principles as they ask and answer questions about the world around them. Readers may recognize the philosophical and pragmatic Bigby as a close cousin of Benjamin Bear, who appears in a series of early readers also by Coudray. In this longer work, Coudray packs a lot into several single-page comic strips. Many of the panels play with perspective. In one comic, Rabbit asks Bigby to sculpt a human. The result, a stick figure with a spherical head, dots for eyes and a nose, and a straight line for a mouth, is "the most accurate representation of a human face." Bigby and Rabbit use stilts to view the face from above and note that the straight line now appears curved upward in a smile and that it is a frown when seen from below. Bigby concludes that the sphere, like humans, is inclined to look "cheery towards his superiors.and disdainful of his inferiors." The characters, drawing style, and format are similar to those in the "Benjamin Bear" titles, but the vocabulary and philosophical concepts are likely to appeal to more experienced readers. VERDICT A thoughtful and amusing choice for most elementary comics collections.-Jennifer Costa, Cambridge Public Library, MA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Whether you know him as LOurs Barnab (in France), Benjamin Bear (as previously published here by TOON Books: Benjamin Bear in Brain Storms!, rev. 5/15, and sequels), or, as in this new collection, Bigby Bear, you know that this characters take on the axis between predictable and surprising is always worth hearingand especially seeing. This collection of multi-paneled, single-paged cartoons consistently demonstrates Bigbys exploration of the physical laws of the universe, whether relying on the tide to do his fishing for him or gravity to feed him those fish; as well as his discovery of the laws of human nature. Smash a mirror in anger at your own reflection? Great, now you have nine Bigby Bears glaring back at you. Although each mini-drama is distinct, one hundred of them is rather a lot at one go, so take the stories a few at a time, all the better to savor such lessons as that provided by an old but still growing tree: The more it growsthe younger it gets! roger Sutton March/April 2019 p 78(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.