posted on 19 Sep 2017

Horrible Bear!  by Ame Dyckman Illustrated by Zachariah OHora

All of us get angry sometimes. When that happens we can be irrational and unfair, often blaming other people for accidents that aren’t their fault. The difficult question for young children who can find these emotions confusing is how you deal with situations like that. The US pairing of writer Ame Dyckman and illustrator, Zachariah OHora have collaborated to give children a lovely simple story that will show them that there’s no shame in swallowing your pride and saying sorry.

A little girl is out flying her kite when it inadvertently blows into Bear’s cave. He’s asleep on the floor and accidently rolls onto the kite and breaks it. Girl is furious with Bear and stomps off shouting about how much she hates horrible Bear to anyone who will listen. Of course, Bear is at first shocked to be blamed like this and the more he thinks about the injustice, the more angry he gets too.

Girl is at home still fuming and playing with her doll when she accidently breaks one of her own toys – disaster! Then she suddenly realises – accidents do happen and maybe Bear wasn’t to blame after all. Her reward for being grown-up and prepared to say sorry is the birth of a new friendship with Bear who helps her mend the kite.

As I say, a simple story delightfully told with the use of the minimum amount of words. Much of the impact of the book comes from the delightful design of the pages which use light and space really well. The illustrations are simple, colourful but really engaging. Girl has a very definite personality – all flaming red hair and bustling anger at first but moving on to remorse and then pleasure without the drawings becoming complicated or detailed.

I have a soft spot for depictions of shambling, clumsy, anthropomorphic animals – probably because I can identify with the way the physical world often seems to collude against them. Bear here is nothing at all like a real bear and yet he is somehow pure essence of cartoon bear – you’d certainly be happy to have him round for tea.

I’m pretty sure younger children will love the chance to shout out ‘Horrible Bear!’ as they read this book with an adult and they will adore the repetitions and chances for grown-ups to put on voices and showcase different emotions as they go from page to page.

Delightful and destined to be a favourite I suspect.

 

Terry Potter

September 2017