Bear in the Barnyard ANNOTATION
Teddy Bear enjoys playing with a toy barnyard while everyone is asleep, but when he visits a real farm, a horse challenges him to find out what he can do to help out, as all of the farm animals do.
FROM THE CRITICS
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 2-Teddy Bear thinks he knows all about rural life from playing with a toy farm so he's delighted to learn that his family is going to stay on a real one. He begins to explore and is shocked by the size of the animals. `"What do you do then?' asked the horse. `Do you lay eggs or make milk? You are too small to pull a cart!'" The industrious bear searches high and low for a way to make himself useful. In the end, he realizes what job he does best of all when a relieved child says: "I've found him-. He was here all along. That was lucky, Mommy. I would never have been able to sleep without Bear." The situations he encounters on the farm are gently comic, such as when he sits on an egg that hatches; some, however, are less obvious, as when, seeing the farm and animals from the second-story window, he thinks they are as small as his toys at home. The plot is appealingly predictable, with a British flavor, and will hold the interest of most young listeners. Morris's watercolor illustrations of animated farm animals have extraordinary charm; Bear is particularly winsome with round belly, blue boots, and red backpack. Children young enough to treasure a special Teddy Bear will enjoy this tale.-Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The plush protagonist of Bear's Dream (2000), illustrated by Morris but written by Janet Slingsby, returns, excited over the prospect of a visit to a real farm with his (never-seen) human companion. It's not at all what he expects, though; the farm's animals turn out not to be toys but great big creatures-friendly, but more focused on work than play. Creating a close-up, child's-eye-level view of a busy farmyard, Morris depicts the increasingly untidy teddy, and the animals he encounters, in expertly done, subtly nuanced watercolors. Having tried, and failed, to perform various outdoorsy tasks, Bear cleans himself up, then, remembering something that he can do, makes his way back to the farmhouse's bedroom, where his relieved bedmate can find him. Despite a text that's a bit longer than usual in these days of short attention spans, here's a tale just right for sharing with children getting ready for their own early ventures out into the wide world. (Picture book. 4-6)
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