After reading a review of an Eve Bunting book I decided to put quite a few of her books on hold at the library. I love reading a lot of books by one author and especially by an author that my daycare children seem to enjoy.

Little Bear’s Little Boat was the first of these books that I shared with Sonny and Jake.


The Story

The main character, Little Bear, loved his little boat. He would fish and row the boat around Huckleberry Lake and really loved to just lay back and dream in it.

He would tie his boat up at night and go back and row again the next day, until one day he noticed how much he had grown. The boat was much too small for him. Of course this made him rather sad, but he figured out a way to fulfill the little boats destiny. He found a little bear to give the boat to saying:

”I have a little boat for you,” Big Bear said. “But there is one thing you should know. You will get bigger and bigger till you are a BIG BEAR. That is a little bear’s destiny.”
The little bear listened carefully.
“The little boat will stay the same size because that is its destiny. When that happens you must find another little bear to fit in the little boat.”

Big Bear watched as the little bear did all of the things that he had once enjoyed doing in the little boat.

On the last page we see that Big Bear has found a way to make himself happy too.


The Illustrations

The illustrations in this book are done in pen and ink and also digital media. They are placed on a white background with soft edges of blues, yellows and greens.

While the bears look like a bear would, they also stand upright to walk and have expressive faces as well. Some pages have a full page illustration while other pages have just a small circle of art.

The text is a medium sized black font that is placed on white background so it is easy to read or hold up and read to a classroom.


My Feelings

This is such a cute and educational book. The story is simple but left a lot of room for me to discuss growing, sharing and passing things on with my two little daycare boys, Sonny who is 3 and Jake an almost 5 year old.

I loved that the bear in this book grew and grew and became too big for his little boat. This led to a discussion about what things grow and what things don’t. Jake and Sonny knew that they were ‘big boys’ and getting bigger but I was curious as to their response when I asked if the table would grow. They both knew that it wouldn’t, and came up with their own things that would and wouldn’t grow. Jake mentioned that the watermelon we were eating wouldn’t grow, so we got a bit of a gardening lesson in too.

I think that teaching young children to pass on what is no longer useful to us is also a wonderful lesson for a book to have. Little Bear not only passed his boat on to another bear, he also told that bear that when he was too big to pass it on as well. What a great way to teach children about recycling and the importance of passing things on and sharing too.

The illustrations are simple and yet very eye appealing. The actual paper they are printed on is also a thicker than usual paper. They are by no means board book style, but they are much heavier than the usual picture books pages are, which would make this book one that I would put on the daycare shelf for the children to read whenever they want, even though it is a library book.

I very highly recommend this book for children as young as 2 years old and children up to around 6 or 7 may enjoy reading this book.


Nuts & Bolts

Little Bear’s Little Boat was written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Nancy Carpenter.

Clarion Books published the 32-page hardcover book in 2003 with a jacket price of $12.00.

I would recommend this book for children 2 – 6 years old and because it has a lot of repetition early readers may enjoy reading it as well.

ISBN: 0395974623


Recommended: Yes