Going with the Floe! Sea Bear: A Journey for Survival by Lindsay Moore

Polar bears are patient beasts,
as patient as glaciers.

A female polar bear rides the currents bearing a large chunk of ice toward the Arctic coast. For her, this journey is no pleasure trip. She has to survive as the ice mass melts into an shrinking ice floe. Her journey is not just for herself, but for her unborn cubs, who need to be born in a den on land. When the floe melts from under her, she knows what she has to do.

I am a sea bear... meant to paddle.
I swim with narwhals...
and glide under whales...

The second night the waves grow in height and the wind in wildness.

There's nothing left to do but swim.

And swim she does, finally pulling herself onto shore after three days of swimming. But spring melt means summer is coming. Summer is a lean season for polar bears, while the seals grow fat at sea, and the mother bear tries to feed her fast growing cubs, knowing that summer always ends soon in the Arctic, and she must teach them the ancient ways of patience.

Lindsay Moore's brand-new Sea Bear: A Journey for Survival (Greenwillow Books, 2019) is a lovely, lyrical and hopeful look at the dilemma of Arctic animals caught in a food web that is threatened by changing climate. In a sweetly-told nonfiction picture book, Moore's beautifully layered blue-green multiple media--watercolor, colored pencil, crayon, and ink--are superbly executed, and the book's design is perfect for its picturesque subject. The author also includes a useful appendix for young nature science lovers.

KEEP OUT! Polar Bear Island by Lindsay Bonilla

WELCOME TO POLAR BEAR ISLAND

NO OTHERS ALLOWED.

Parker Polar Bear, mayor of Polar Bear Island, has a policy. His island is perfect. Their population is just right as it is. But unknown to Parker, his domain is about to have a visitor.

Kirby waddled where the wind blew, and today she was floating toward paradise.

Kirby is a young penguin with wanderlust, and the wind is blowing her floating ice floe toward the beach of a snow-covered island.

Parker stops her at the border.

"Didn't you read the sign? Get out!"

Kirby pleads her case. She's made a long voyage, and Parker relents, allowing her on night on shore.

But while Kirby is rummaging through her luggage, the other polar bears notice something intriguing--her flipper slippers, which double as flipper warmers, and when reversed, as snow shoes.

All the bears want some, too, and Parker soon sets up a veritable Flipper Slipper Factory, helping the bears make their own.

"They're toasty warm and tons of fun!"

Parker is not pleased. Bears are not supposed to wear slippers on their paws.

"Start packing, penguin."

But the citizens of Bear Island protest the deportation, pleading a need for more production of slippers.  Parker bows to the populace and grants Kirby resident status. He add a new phrase to his sign:

WELCOME TO POLAR BEAR ISLAND.
1 PENGUIN AND NO OTHERS ALLOWED.

But the happy hiatus doesn't last long. It seems Kirby has written to her relatives, touting the virtues of the island, and soon four members of her family show up on the beach, unpacking shovels and bed-sleds, creating snow cone flavors, and building snow slides right down to the sea.

Parker pitches a tantrum! He orders all the visitors off the island, but as he's ranting about the interlopers, he slips and falls on the ice. It's penguin paramedics to the rescue, and during his recuperation, Parker discovers the joys of bed-sleds, snow cones, and cozy flipper slippers for himself.

Parker has yet another change of policy:

You penguins weren't taking over our island! You're making it a better place!

Everyone agrees they're better together!

Sharp-eyed readers won't be surprised to spot a recuperated Parker painting a new welcome sign, in Lindsay Bonilla's Polar Bear Island(Sterling Children's Books, 2018) in this little parable of open-mindedness. Artist Cinta Villalobos' illustrations create comic images of a curmugeonly bear, perky inventive penguins, and a busy snow scene that add to the fun of this transformed island.