I would recommend this book to younger aged students in elementary. It is a book that goes through a bear who gets lost in the city and comes across a sandwich in the park to eat. This would be good in the classroom because it is a funny story that students will enjoy and allows the children to see the city that this bear is roaming through.

Oh! I love love love the incredibly expressive illustrations, the wonderfully detailed and funny bear, the winning and interesting story. Yup. It's a winner. New Favorite Picture Book! ( )

Great and fun book about a bear. I would recommend this book for kids who love animals! ( )

This book would be great for primary age level readers. Book is full of beautiful art and shows many settings including the forest, city, rivers, and more. The art gives children many opportunities to have a live imagery in their minds. It shows the bear in a city, but the bear calls it a "forest." Interesting to read to kids and talk to them about how it is a forest to the animal, but a city to us? I think this would be a great read aloud, and question children on certain parts like the city "forest" and the ending when we find out the dog told the story. ( )

This book surprised me! I wish I had discovered it when I was young, but it's just as great to find it as an adult. I knew from the cover and a general description on the book order page that it would be a little bit silly, but I was not expecting the plot twist at the end!

I mentioned it to my sister, who is an early elementary teacher (ages 4 through 7, usually), and she agreed - "it's a good one!" At the most superficial level, it's an exercise for kids to read or listen to the text, which describes a forest, while looking at illustrations of a city - an introduction to metaphor and imaginative descriptions. I'm curious about how my 4 year old nephew would react to the story, but I suspect he would be annoyed that the pictures and text don't match. My sister concurs - in her experience, older kids respond a little better.

In particular, the twist at the end is probably the most difficult for the littlest kids to understand, though it's the thing that took this from a book I enjoy to a book I truly love. Perceptive readers will realize the narrator is unreilable: the story about a bear in a strange forest who eats your sandwich is being told by the actual sandwich-eater: a small dog. It's an exercise in tall tales to escape blame! And in the very last page, the dog barks instead of using words - did the little girl even understand the story she was being told? There's so many fun layers to the twist, and I adore it!

The illustrations are a perfect match for the humorous story. They are painterly with visible brushstrokes - gouache, perhaps? - and full of life. Mostly they tend to be yellow or yellow-green, fitting for a sunny day in the park, with accents in blue and orange. The pacing varies as the black bear goes on his adventure, which accentuates the humor and liveliness. The bear itself is almost always shown in the middle of movement - stretching, crouching, climbing, hiding - with the stretch-and-pull technique of cartoons. Really, the illustrations are fantastic.

I'm very happy to add this book to my collection of excellent picture books! ( )