cover image The Three Bears Holiday Rhyme Book

The Three Bears Holiday Rhyme Book

Jane Yolen. Harcourt Children's Books, $16 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-15-200932-8

The bear family introduced in Yolen's and Dyer's Baby Bear's Bedtime Book and The Three Bears Rhyme Book return in rhyming poems celebrating 15 holidays. Written primarily in the voice of Baby Bear, Yolen's short, bouncy verses can be humorous and endearing, although they occasionally succumb to the precious. Consistently engaging are Dyer's buoyant watercolors, which include lavish full-page pictures as well as inventive background patterns and borders to frame the text. Gracefully conveying the changing seasons, Dyer's art also captures the spunk of its bruin protagonists--especially the cub on the final page, who celebrates that top-rated holiday, the birthday. Ages 3-8. (Mar.)