How Do Bears Sleep?

Children's Literature - Beverly Kobrin

How Do Bears Sleep? Might they "make up a bed / Of dry leaves and stones, Or lie on the ground / Just resting [their] bones...?" Or "twist...turn... snarl and get grumpy...tear up [their] bed when it starts feeling lumpy?" Author/artist E. J. Bird's poetic musings and amusing paintings are not to be missed when hibernating bears are on the agenda.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3-- Many questions are posed in verse about what goes on inside a bear's den during the winter months. ``Does he make up a bed of dry leaves and stones, or lie on the ground just resting his bones?'' queries the narrative poem. Questions such as these are never answered, and readers are led to believe that man knows almost nothing about hibernating bears. The statement is made in the author's note that ``all living things have little clocklike gadgets buried somewhere inside'' telling them when to get hungry and when to sleep. Even the youngest readers deserve better terminology and explanation. Gray paper is used as the background for simple pen-and-ink drawings washed with light pastels. The sleeping bear, in its many positions, is amusing in a somewhat cartoonlike style. More a picture-book read-aloud than a nature book, this offers little information about bears or hibernation. --Diane Nunn, Richard E. Byrd Elem . School, Glen Rock, NJ