How Do Bears Sleep?

It's hard for me to leave a visitor center empty-handed. Okay, it's near impossible when books are involved, which is usually the case at most nature or national park visitor centers. We went to the National Bison Range on Monday and they have some books in their visitor center. I can almost always find something useful for school in these places. However, this time it was a picture book that caught my eye.

How Do Bears Sleep? is written and illustrated by E.J. Bird and was published in 1990 by Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing. It's written in rhyme and gives suggestions of what a bear might be doing in his den in the winter. Does he twist? Does he turn? Does he dream? It has a second grade reading level and is geared towards the 5-10 age group. What hooked me into buying this book were the illustrations. If you click on the link above, it takes you to Amazon where you can see some of the artwork, which is a little different than the cover. This is a great read-aloud book, not only because of the clever rhymes, but because it gives children so much to imagine. Does he curl up in a ball? Does he scratch his behind?

As I said, I found my copy at the visitor center of the National Bison Range. It was only $6.95, which is a huge plus for me. I love picture books, but sometimes I have a hard time dishing out $20+ for them, so this was a real bargain. If you can't find it at your local bookseller or library, it's available through Amazon on the link above. It's definitely worth checking out!