Bear Feels Sick Review

This week, I'll be reviewing Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman. Is it extremely important to remember who is the illustrator of this book. The Bear series of books are very well written and well thought out children's books, but they suffer from a unique issue. The layout of the book is controlled by the ego-maniacal and self-flagellating children's book illustrator Jane Chapman, who is likely nothing more than an art school dropout recruited by a very talented author to add pictures to a previously written story. Are the pictures good? I suppose, but my God, there are like 400 pages to a children's book!

The setting: Bear's soon to be quarantined cave in the autumn

The characters: Bear, his friends, and an illustrator who somehow manages to become part of the story

This book starts out on page 10 because the first 5 pages are drawings of a giant forest with bear in a cave. After that, there are 3 pages more of drawings of Bear and his friends on the title page of the book. After that, and I'm actually serious about this, the very first page after the title page HAS NO WORDS ON IT! There is another picture! I get it... You want the readers to visualize what is going on! Just tell the story already! I imagine that the illustrator of this book either got paid by the page or worked out a deal where she gets to draw as many pictures as she can and the editor has to figure out how to show every page. Brutal.

First page after title page

We are quickly introduced (on page 10) to bear who is sick. His symptoms include a snuffed up nose, achiness, and insomnia. We also find out that bear suffers from wheezing and a fever. From those symptoms, we are able to infer that bear has the flu, and we should take appropriate precautions to prevent spreading the illness. However, his friends come sauntering in and tell bear that they will take care of him. They divvy up responsibilities and begin to help bear feel better. Some of his friends are naturopaths, and they gather herbs to use in a tea. Some of his friends start cooking something (although it does not become clear what they are cooking). The story develops slowly as we have to turn the page every few sentences because there are SO MANY pictures like below.

Really, there is 1 sentence on these 2 pages! You do not need to draw a picture for every single line of text. We really don't need to SEE what it looks like when mouse is sneezing and hare is wheezing. We can imagine it! However, in Bear Feels Sick, no imagination is needed because EVERY SINGLE action described in the story has a corresponding picture. Need to know what bear looks like when they put a blanket on him? They got that covered. Need to see the friends cooking and caring? Taken care of! Need to know what bear looks like when he gets better? We have FOUR pages of that!!

In the climax of the book, when his friends exclaim, "we've done all we could," bear's fate becomes slightly murky and you begin to wonder if bear may die this flu season. However, bear ultimately survives, despite his friend's deep concern for his well-being. It seems his friends make crappy doctors by not taking the necessary precautions to prevent themselves from becoming sick. Once bear makes a miraculous recovery, waking up feeling "like new," we discover that his friends are now sick! Normally, I would have made sure to give the readers of this review a spoiler alert. Unfortunately, in Bear Feels Sick, they have spoiled the ENTIRE STORY already on the back cover of the book! The entire story including the very end of the book is summarized on the back cover! What's up with that?

In summation, Bear Feels Sick is a 3 page story stretched out over 100 pages by a pencil wielding narcissist that hijacks an otherwise cute story. Since Lily thoroughly enjoys flipping pages and because she enjoys the anticipation of repeating phrases like "and the bear feels sick," she gives this book 5 out of 5 stars! Bear Feels Sick is available at Amazon for $13.00, which is a steal for a book that probably took Jane Chapman 3 years to illustrate. Pick up your copy today and use it as an example of why your kids have to wash their hands after being in public and shouldn't play with wild animals. The bubon lurks behind every corner! Happy reading!