A Bear Where? The New LiBEARian by Alison Donald

THE CHILDREN WERE READY.

JACK LOOKED AROUND. "OUR LIBRARIAN ISN'T HERE," HE SAID.

"MS. MERRYWEATHER IS NEVER LATE," SAID KENZIE.

"LET'S GO FIND HER!" SAID DEE.

The proactive preschoolers set out to solve the mystery of their missing library storyteller. They know good sleuths look for footprints and Dee spots some right away.

"THEY'RE PAW PRINTS!" DEE DECLARED.

The kids trek along the trail of tracks past stacks which offer galaxies, pirate ships, and aircraft. But when they come to Ms. Merryweather's own desk, they find even more quirky clues. Her desk is sticky, with a tell-tale pot of spilled honey and some seriously shredded pages scattered about. And what they see confirms their case!

A NEW LIBRARIAN!

Their new librarian is A LiBEARian! He's wearing a LIBRARIAN nametag taped to his fur.

WHERE'S MS. MERRYWEATHER?" DEE ASKED.

The liBEARian shrugs and when the kids ask for a story of the usual sort--princesses, dragons, pirates--he yawns, but when Dee asks for a scary story, he nods and launches into a rip-roaring and growling reading of a bear book. The kids are loving the sound effects when one hears the sound of grownup footsteps approaching.

It's the missing Ms. Merryweather, apologizing profusely. It seems she has had to deal with a little problem with a volcanic eruption, presumably in Pompeii among the Ancient History stacks. Quickly, she opens her copy of The Three Bears and launches into the familiar opening about Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and... Whoa! Wait!--

Now Baby Bear is missing--right from his place in the middle of the illustration between the bemused parent bears. But Ms. Merryweather is on to her missing character's tricks.

"I KNOW YOU'RE HIDING, BABY BEAR," MS. MERRYWEATHER SAID.

Looking as sheepish as a little bear can look, Baby Bear takes his proper place on page. Swiftly turning to the next spread as only an experienced librarian can do to hold her audience's attention, Ms. Merryweather speeds through the familiar porridge problem until it's time for a pivotal piece of plot development. Dramatically, she makes the page turn that presents the tale's protagonist, but--

What's sauce for Baby Bear is sauce for Goldilocks, and youngsters will swiftly spot the missing heroine--seated in the on-page story circle and giving her readers outside the book a conspiratorial wink, in Alison Donald's The New LiBEARian (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2018). In this forthcoming story-within-a-story picture book, author Donald and artist Alex Willmore let that metafictional "fourth wall" fall, celebrating the ability of young children to enter right into a story and experience the characters and themselves as real participants in that "willing suspension of disbelief" that poet William Coleridge promised. Kids in the storytime group become gleeful participants when a startled Ms. Merryweather discovers Goldilocks is not on page for her big scene.

"WAIT! WHERE'S GOLDILOCKS?"

This book begs to be read aloud, with proper growls from the liBEARian and proper reactions from the iconic, unflappable Ms. Merryweather, staunchly forging on through circle time, come what may. Alex Willmore keeps his soft pastel illustrations light and funny as befits their fantastical bent, as author Donald slyly drops her final aside to her real-life readers.

("YOU KNOW, DON'T YOU?")