Baby Bear Sees Blue, by Ashley Wolff (ages 2 - 5) - exploring nature with young children

Summer days invite all of us to spend more time outside, whether it's those precious early morning hours as the world is waking before the heat sets in, or lazy days exploring creatures hiding at the pond's edge. A lovely book to share with young children this summer is Baby Bear Sees Blue, by Ashley Wolff. Baby bear starts exploring his world, asking his mother to name everything he sees - just the way our children do.

Baby Bear Sees Blue
by Ashley Wolff
NY: Beach Lane Books, 2012
ages 2 - 5
available at your local library or on Amazon

As Baby Bear and his mother explore the forest and meadow around them, the young cub asks question after question:

“Who is warming me, Mama?”
“Who is waving to me, Mama?”
“Mama! Who splashed me?” 

Mama patiently tells her cub about each thing — the sun, the leaves, the trout — introducing her youngster to the world. Turn the page, and Baby Bear looks more closely, noticing the color in his world. As he looks at the sun, “Baby Bear sees yellow.” Here, Baby Bear looks into the river and sees the brown of the trout swimming by:

Ashley Wolff captures a young child’s unending curiosity of the world, weaving in an exploration of colors, all with perfect pacing for young children. I adore her illustrations, inspired by the mother bear and cub in Blueberries for Sal. Wolff carves the images on linoleum blocks, prints the black images, and then hand colors the watercolors. As Jules wrote at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, "These spreads burst forth with highly-saturated color and lots of energy and life." Head over there to see some incredible work-in-progress images from this book.

This is a perfect story to share with young children as they explore the world around them. Explore more books to share with your child at my monthly Bookshelf column over at Parents Press. This month I'm focusing on exploring the outdoors.

The review copy was sent by the publisher, Simon & Schuster. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

Review ©2012 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books