Too Much Of A Good Thing? The Boy and the Bear by Peter Stein

The boy had a bear
A fuzzy brown bear

The boy. The bear.
Always a pair.

The boy and bear go everywhere together.

But on the way to everywhere, what does he note? A goat... in a polka-dot coat!

Who could resist such a jolly fellow? But then the boy spots a toy slug who needs a hug...

And on a tree limb, he spies HIM--a funky monkey! And that's not all. Under a ten-gallon hat... is that a toy rat?

The boy can barely believe it! He's loaded down with irresistible fuzzy toys, but then, with a goofy grin, he spots this... THING with a pull string that makes it sing!

The toys are all sweet and neat, but a boy can only carry so many cuddly critters before he... (yikes!) TRIPS! Fuzzy toys scatter all over the quirky landscape.

But where was the bear?
He looked everywhere.

Kids will giggle as the boy, his beloved bear right smack on top of his head, searches high and low for his favorite, and that's not all...

He saw a blimp.
A delivery blimp...

A slippery latch
Had opened the hatch...

It's a flying contraption straight out of the mind of Dr. Seuss (or maybe a daffy drone doing an Amazon delivery), and what's a kind boy to do but help upload its jettisoned cargo, in Peter Stein's whimsical toy story, The Boy and the Bear (Holiday House, 2019). With jolly rhyming text and a whimsical and wacky landscape, author-illustrator Peter Stein's latest is a highly visual comic story written in playful verse that begs to be read aloud.