Wonder Bear - Tao Nyeu

Wordless Picture Book
For: Kids, I guess...
Published: Sept, 2008
Rating: 2.5 (Pictures nice, storyline blech)
Read: Oct. 3, 2008
Endpapers: Blue-on-white overlapping triple-lined scallops. Excellent.

This book has an old-fashioned look, reminds me of an old picture book, but I'm not sure which one. The cover has a really attractive sheen to it. Green, blue, mustard, orange and black on white.

Two kids plant seeds, go to bed, and dream. An amazing stalk grows, from which a magical white bear with a blue hat appears. He introduces himself to the children and pulls mustard-colored peanut-monkeys with black furry appendages one-by-one from the hat - dozens of them. Then the bear blows bubbles that are shaped like lions, each catching and carying a now-brown monkey into the air. From the hat come flowers which the white bear eats, blowing into the air comes streams of sea animals - dolphins, octopi, and seals, who all swim through the sky with the monkeys, the bear, and the children. They fall to the ocean, then swim back to land where they put the kids to bed and dssappear back up the stalk. The white bear climbs into the blue hat, which flies out into the sky.

Okay, it's a weird , magical dream. The illustrations are simple, colorful, fanciful, and imaginative. I wish there were more "plot" to the dream. Young kids? Probably not. Older kids? Perhaps. I'm skeptical - it's cool, but will kids get it?