Picture Book Monday with a review of Big Bear Hug

One of the things I like about living on the west coast is that most of the people around here are very huggy. When my mother visited for the first time, my new friends hugged her as if they knew her well. She wasn't quite sure what to do. Why were all these strangers hugging her? I explained the people around her are friendly.

In today's picture book you will a sweet, lovable bear who is VERY huggy and who truly understands how to show others that he likes them.

Big Bear Hug
Nicholas Oldland
Picture Book
For ages 5 and up
Kids Can Press, 2009, 978-1-55453-464-7
In a forest there is a bear who is “so filled with love and happiness” that he hugs every living thing he encounters. The bear even hugs animals that bears normally eat, and no animal is too big or too small for the bear’s loving embrace. He even hugs smelly skunks and “scary” snakes.
   Though the bear loves to hug other animals, he loves to hug trees even more. He hugs trees of all kinds and he loves them dearly. One day he sees a man chopping down a tree and the poor bear is appalled. He is horrified. He even starts to get angry, and he thinks that perhaps he should bite the man. After all, the man is harming one of the bear’s beloved trees.
   In this simple yet incredibly powerful book we meet a bear who is goodness personified. Children will immediately fall in love with the big bear who is willing to hug a skunk, and who wraps himself around the trunk of a tree with so much obvious devotion. Most of all, readers will be delighted to see how the bear responds when something negative enters his world. Surely this bear has something to teach us all about how to deal with the negatives things that we encounter in life.