Book Reflection: Another Book About Bears.

Another Book About Bears, by Laura and Philip Bunting

It just so happens, when you’ve set yourself a mini-challenge of writing book reviews/reflections about books with bears in them, that you end up spending a lot of time talking about children’s books. Bears are very popular animals for children’s books, and they slowly peter out by the time you get to books for older readers, young adults or old adults.

It’s like that meme that was doing the rounds on the Internet a little while ago – when you’re a child people ask you what your favourite dinosaur is, but when you grow up they stop asking, like they don’t even care any more. For the record, I’m fond of the elasmosaurus – although technically the underwater critters aren’t dinosaurs, they’re marine reptiles. I don’t know why.

Anyway, the point is that kids books are rife with bears. And this is something that the Buntings point out (to great effect) in Another Book About Bears. The book begins with a typical story-book set up, “once upon a time there was a bear” sort of thing, but the bear in the book almost immediately interrupts the story to complain about how much work bears have to do because they’re in so many darn stories. They’d love to take a nap or eat dinner, but no – someone wants to read another book about bears, so they have to drop what they’re doing and “perform” the story.

Now, I’d really love to read the text behind the bear as he’s* interrupting said story.  There’s something about an Esquilax and a horse with the something of a rabbit and the body of something else. Anyhoo, that’s beside the point, as the rest of the book focuses on the bear and his fellow ursines trying to get out of being in another book by recommending a litany of other animals to replace them.

The book made me chuckle the whole way through – no problem engaging my inner four-year-old with this one.

It also put me in mind of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. In that series, characters in books have a life to live behind the scenes, but have to perform the story every time someone reads it – much like the bears in this book. It’s an interesting idea, and it’s interesting to encounter it again here.

Jasper Fforde, incidentally, wrote a book about bears that wasn’t a children’s book, and I’ll be looking at that little gem at some point in the future.

In the meantime, if you get the chance, do make sure you read Another Book About Bears. You’ll be glad you did.

*Have you ever notice that most of the books about bears where there is one central bear in the story, the bear is a “he”? I find that interesting, and if anyone can think of any books featuring an ursine central character who is a “she”, I’d very much like to hear about it.