A Friend Indeed: Lost and Found by JiWon Beck

An indigenous girl makes her way through the snowscape to her hole in the ice, where she catches three fish, and with them over over her shoulder, confidently heads toward home. But a blinding snowstorm suddenly blows in, and she is lost in the vast expanse of white.

Through the windblown snowflakes she spots a fisherman's igloo, but when she takes shelter inside, she sees a young polar bear has gotten there first.

But the two see themselves in the same situation. The bear is friendly, and sensing that he is hungry, she gives him her fish, and the two share her little blanket through the cold night.

When the storm ceases, she catches more fish for her friend, and as the snow begins again, he escorts her, even giving her a ride on his back until she spies her little house ahead. The two say goodbye with a nose rub and a hug, and seeing that the young bear is reunited with his mama, the girl runs toward her own mother, their front door open wide for her.

In his wordless picture book, JiWon Beck's Lost and Found (Peter Pauper Press, 2019) tells a moving story of kindnesses shared, with strikingly lovely illustrations done in the spare colors of the arctic scene, gray, white, black, and the red of the child's mittens. Telling the same timeless story of kindness between unlikely friends as Aesop's ancient fable of the lion and the mouse, Beck's tale does it without text, but with the language of beautiful artwork that speaks volumes.

Share this one in the snowy season with Matthew Cordell's 2018 Caldecott winner, Wolf in the Snow (read review here).