Molly and the Bear

Image of Molly and the Bear
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
March 8, 2016
Publisher/Imprint: 
Cameron + Company
Pages: 
256
Reviewed by: 

Humans have long had a love affair with cuddly bears. Think Winnie the Pooh, Baloo from The Jungle Book, and everyone’s wise-cracking favorite, Yogi! Well, there’s a new bear in town who is set to become the latest favorite. His name is Bear (of course!), and he is huge, furry, and simply adorable.

Molly and the Bear, by Disney animation artist Bob Scott, is an oversized new picture book that’s full of giggle-worthy strips about cuddly, adorable Bear, who meets his BFF Molly after he smells food coming from her kitchen window. He climbs through the window, crashes on Molly’s sofa, and ends up staying forever. Poor Bear is afraid of everything: He’s afraid of the dark, he’s afraid of the light, and he’s even afraid of dusk, which gives him a “congested feeling.”

Yes, Bear has some real problems. He’s afraid of the sound that breathing makes and asks Molly to hold her breath while she sleeps. He’s terrified of babies that say, “Goo!” He’s afraid of flash bulbs, dogs barking, and, oddly, being mugged while he sits in a La-Z-Boy recliner. He’s afraid to jump in water, he’s afraid to get water in his eyes, and he’s afraid to . . . well, you get the idea. And in addition to all those fears, Bear also happens to suffer from allergies. That’s right, he’s allergic—to his own fur!

Molly and the Bear is 249 oversized pages of good-natured fun. The text and illustrations are brimming with laugh-out-loud humor, like when Bear decides to hibernate on Molly’s sofa and a bunch of his bear friends drop by to hibernate, too; and when Bear tries to hit a baseball (literally HIT it . . . with a bat); and when Bear is confused to see Molly wearing a dress and tells her, “I thought that only old Scottish men wore those.”

Bob Scott’s prose is sweet and funny and spot on. In fact, it’s easy to see that he has given his all to this collection of comic strips, that by completing this unforgettable volume of “Bear-ism’s,” he has shared his dreamed with his readers and left them smiling, fired up, and ready for more humor. And that’s one thing we surely can’t get enough of: smiling, soothing humor.

Thanks, Bob!