The cover to Else Holmelund Minarik’s Little Bear (1957) points out a fact that is crucial and new to me: this was the first book in the “I Can Read” series, a series that now includes more than 200 books. This fact is both important in itself and helpful for understanding the slightly shaky nature of the first books in the series. Early books, like this one, are a little stiff, still essentially figuring things out. Some elements–like the clarity, focus, simply language, and love between parent and child–are there from the beginning. Other elements–most markedly story structure–fade in and out a bit.
In any case, this is picture book-adjacent, rather than being strictly a picture book…but like the other books in the series, such as A Kiss for Little Bear, the art is wonderful. Maurice Sendak’s drawings are always engaging, with magic in every line.
This book contains four shorter stories (or four standalone chapters), each with clear titles. There’s a nicely silly arc in What Will Little Bear Wear? and a good reversal at the end. Birthday Soup is the most basic, basically an extended meditation on waiting. Little Bear Goes to the Moon really captures the loopy imagination of childhood, and Little Bear’s Wish brings it all together with a reflective review of all he’s done. The overall result is reflective and complex: the final chapter is a story about past stories, and a wish about past wishes.
Gentle. Kind. Lovely. And Sendak.
