cover image BLOSSOM AND BOO: A Story About Best Friends

BLOSSOM AND BOO: A Story About Best Friends

Dawn Apperley, BLOSSOM AND BOO: A Story About Best Friends

Apperley's (the Hide and Seek series) reassuring if predictable tale introduces an inseparable bunny and bear, who swing from trees and make flower crowns in summer and giggle when the falling leaves tickle their noses in the fall. The companions watch out for each other in times of trouble: when Blossom falls down and hurts her paw, Boo bandages it with a leaf and holds her; and when mice scamper off with Boo's berries, Blossom comforts him and gives him the rest of her stash. Boo warns her that he will hibernate in the winter, and when he disappears Blossom feels sad and lonely, yet she finds solace in the memories of playing with her pal. And when the two reunite in the spring, they share "the biggest best-friend hug in the world!" Apperley's unadorned, at times childlike, watercolor and pencil illustrations convey the chums' changeable emotions (e.g., as Blossom sits alone in the falling snow outside of the sleeping Boo's cave, her shoulders slump and her ears droop). The sizable scale of the art and the narrative's easily grasped concept recommend this as a preschool read-aloud, especially since the various feelings the friends experience will spark story-hour discussion. Ages 3-5. (Mar.)