Blog #13 My Favorite Bear

My Favorite Bear

Written and Illustrated by Andrea Gabriel
Charlesbridge
2004
27 pages

Poetry

       I chose this book because of the detailed close-up illustration of the bear on the cover. This story is about a mother bear telling her baby cub about the other bears in the world. She tells him about several kinds of bears, what different bears like to eat, and what they look like. She finishes the story by telling the baby bear that while there are many bears in the world he is her favorite. 

       The illustrations in this book look to be either oil pastels or crayons. The hash marks created by the different strokes of the crayons give a sense of depth and dimension to the illustrations. Each page is a full illustration with one line of the book on each page or every other page. The main focus of the book is the illustration of the various types of bears. At the end of the book there is a cataloged index of each type of bear depicted in the book with a picture and description of that type of bear. The double-paged spread of most of the illustrations allow for considerable detail to be put into the bears’ features. Although the style of art is not abstract or surreal, it is not overly-realistic to where the reader cannot tell whether they are looking at a painting or a picture.  

  

       This book is most appropriate for lower elementary grades, mainly kindergarten or first grade. The most evident use of this book would be as an introduction into the different types of bears and how they interact with their environment. An interactive method teachers may use with this book might be to have students draw a picture of a type of bear and write a sentence about that type of bear. For older grades, teachers could have students use this book as a model and have them write their own book about different types of a species of an animal. The book would include at least three types of the species with a cataloged index in the back of the book. Teachers could also have older students do a group project on the different types of bears that would include their habitat, diet, and appearance.

This book was named on the Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year.

To view more illustrations and artwork by Andrea Gabriel, click her name .