I am slowly working my way through all of the Karma Wilson books that I can get my hands on. I recently picked up three more from the library. Even though Bear Hugs: Romantically Ridiculous Animal Rhymeshas a long title and rather long poems on each page, my daycare children still loved sitting and giggling at the silly romance of the animals.


The Poems

Each page of this wonderful book features a different animal and romantically ridiculous animal rhymes…as the title says.

In rhyme we learn about the Rhinocerkiss of the rhinoceros and Turtle Love and of course Bear Hugs:

When this burly pair hugs,
it’s tender-loving-care hugs,
twirling-in-the-air hugs,
cuddled-in-the-lair hugs,
here-and-everywhere hugs!
They sure like to share hugs.
Aww, of course…
It’s bear hugs!

There are poems about a self loving cat and elephants that always remember as well as pigs on pignic and moose and penguins too. In all there are 18 short and clever poems.


The Illustrations

When I picked this book up with several others from the library, the cover stood out immediately. It is a beautiful soft pink and makes you think of love and hugs and right from the beginning makes you feel as if this will be a fun book to read.

The colorful illustrations in this book are done in alkyd oil painting. Each page is filled with the animal of that particular poem and lots of fun surrounding detail.

Each animal is drawn to be easily identifiable but with a bit of whimsy and faces that are full of expression. Their colors are also the natural color of each of the animals but with a bit of a flair of exaggeration to make them a bit bolder and more interesting.

The text is a medium black font that on most pages is placed where it can be easily seen. There is one page where the text is placed on a green hill that is a bit more difficult to see and my old eyes have to work a bit harder to read, but that is a very, very minor con.


My Feelings

The bears hugging on the front cover and rhinos hugging on the back told me that this would be a fun book full of fanciful animals.

I absolutely loved the poems in this book and found it a great way to talk about rhyming with my daycare children. The age recommendation of 4 – 8 years is probably a good one because of the length of some of the poems and the overall length of the book. The two oldest children seemed to keep wanting more, but we read this book in several different sittings, so that the younger children didn’t feel as if they were sitting too long for one book.

Each poem is silly and fun and takes unexpected turns throughout. I loved being able to be silly with the kids as we read. The illustrations added to our silliness as we laughed about the coiled up two snakes or the kangaroo with a pocket full of posies.

The last page is a poem that is titled People are Animals Too and it was a great way to end this charming book. The poem talks about people loving and sometimes acting like animals, such as being silly loons or chattering likes birds in the trees. The last line expresses the feel of this book…

Yes, people are animals too…
and the best kind of animal-person is
YOU!

A great ending to a wonderful book that I’ll be adding to my daycare shelf. Even though some of the poems are a little long for very young children, I do think that I’ll pull this one out at times when we are talking about different animals and use the poem as a way to encourage them to learn more.

While this book talks about love and Valentine’s Day I don’t think that it has to be that lover’s holiday for children and their caregivers to have a great time with this charming book.


Nuts & Bolts

Bear Hugs was written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Suzanne Watts.

Margaret K McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing published this 32 page hardcover book in 2005.

This book is recommended for children 4 – 8 years old, which is a good recommendation, although mature 3’s may have fun listening too.

The jacket price for this book is $14.95 U.S. and $22.50 CAN.

ISBN: 0-689-85763-2


Recommended: Yes