Bears on Chairs
Shirley Parenteau
Illustrated by David Walker

Candlewick Press
2009 / ISBN 9780763650926
Children Fiction (Ages 1-3)
Amazon

Reviewed by Bob Walch

Here’s a clever story about four chairs and five resourceful bears. On the first page of this board book, you’ll find “four small chairs just right for bears”. As you turn the pages you’ll see cute, little, blue, pink, brown, and yellow bears appear and claim each of the chairs.

Everything is fine until, “Big Brown Bear looks for a chair. There is none there for that big bear. What a stare from Big Brown Bear. That big bear wants a chair!”

Oh dear, that’s not good, so the little bears try to find a solution to the situation. Sharing a chair doesn’t seem to work because Big Bear is just that – too big! But eventually the bears put their furry heads together and come up with a clever way to handle the problem. “There’s room up there for all five bears! Not it’s fair! The bears all share!”

This story for toddlers illustrates there are some clever ways of solving that age old dilemma of finding a way to share when there apparently isn’t enough of something (it could be food or some toys) to go around. The simple but expressive illustrations and rhyming text should make your little bear sit up and take notice that sharing is always a good idea!

Reviewer's Note: