Imagery ( )

I loved this one to bits. The story got me in the feels (despite its improbability), and the illustrations are *gorgeous*. There are several pages here I would love to have prints of to hang on my walls. ( )

et another stellar book illustrated by one of my favorite artists. LaMarche's works contain soft images with a dream like quality.

This is a story of a woman who stays in a wooded cabin during the summer months. A bear, finding scribbling on a piece of paper, carries this with him. As the woman reads throughout the summer, bear notices that the markings on his paper and on the books read by the lady, are similar.

Bear becomes more comfortable slowly moving closer to her. By summer's end, he is right by her as she reads.

When she leaves, he is sad. Happily he finds that she left him magical gifts -- many books!

Once again, the superb illustrations pulled me in. This is a soft book, with shafts of sun steaming through the trees, landing gently on the woman and her bear guest. All is quiet in the woods. It is a time of rest and relaxation. The bear's paper containing words holds magic for him.

And both he and the woman are drawn together over the wonderment of reading. The bear quietly sits and listens as she reads to him. This is an interesting tale of how the love of books weaves an unbroken bond.

A Story for Bear is a beautiful story about a young bear who finds a mysterious paper with tiny marks on it. He decides to bring it back to his cave. Years later the bear wondered from his cave and sees a woman with a strange square thing. He wasn't sure what she was looking at and why it was bring her so much joy, but it calmed him. The story goes to show us the power and joy of reading relationships. There is a sweet connection between the mysterious paper and the woman. ( )

Summary: There was a young bear who has been wandering through the woods and found a piece of paper. The bear grew up and grew more curious about the paper that he found as a cub. The older bear was wandering around when he found a woman reading a book outside of the house. Everyday the bear returned to this same spot and everyday the woman was there reading another book. She left a book outside one day and the bear curiously looked through it as the woman came back outside and offered for the bear to stay. They grew a friendship together, the woman and the bear, and as she read to the bear he began to trust her, so bear brought her the paper he had kept all of those years. Their friendship grew and grew and one day he came to the house and she had left, but left him her memories through books.

Review: Haseley writes an amazing and heartfelt story that circles around the message that friends come and go, but our love for them remains the same. In this story bear grows an unusual relationship with a woman who lives in a cabin in the woods. The friendship began when the woman did not turn bear away because he was a bear; she said "Come here. Come here, bear" (p.11). The woman loved bear and wanted to share her love of reading with him. Bear would come everyday to listen to the woman read. One day when bear came and the woman wasn't there, he became quite sad. He walked around her cabin and then realized that she left him a present; all of her books! Bear took this as a sign that she would always remember him. At the end of the story the woman eventually came back in the spring, but this shows that a friendship can fade during certain times and be rekindled. ( )