I recently started reading the Little Bear series written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Dorothy Doubleday. Little Bear and the Marco Polo (1957) is my next foray into the series.
Strictly speaking, these are not picture books. These are labeled as an “I Can Read” book, and would more accurately called an easy reader. However, given the centrality and number of the images put this in what I call the picture-book adjacent category.
In any case, though Little Bear and the Marco Polo falls early in the series, it is one of the more complex books, both in emotion and in terms of narrative structure. Some of the other books contain several short stories, but this one is a single longer story running through the whole book. Grandmother Bear sends Little Bear to help Grandfather Bear in the attic. When they’re there, two things happen: Little Bear’s ladybug flies away and Little Bear stumbles across first clothes that let him play sailor, then a picture of the Marco Polo.
These discoveries lead Grandfather Bear to tell the story of Marco Polo (the explorer) briefly, then of possible explorations around the world. Talk of explorations out in the world lead to further explorations in the attic, and a new find: grandmother’s wedding dress. This leads to a story of how their love became the new adventure that displaced Grandfather Bear’s dream of exploration.
Then they go down to see the Marco Polo itself, then, hungry, head home. When they get there, grandmother’s wearing her dress–and Little Bear proposes at her beauty, only for his grandfather to assert his prior claim. Then there’s a lunch picnic, and cookies take the place of adventure for Little Bear, at least for now.
The episodic structure is surprisingly smooth, and the layers of memory, desire, and shifting identity are considerably more complicated than are usually present in picture books.
