Bear can't sleep--and he certainly can't settle down for the winter. Rather, he finds other animals with whom he can race and wrestle; he even flies across the lake with the geese--and then flies back. Although the other animals want to rest, Bear says he doesn't, but as night falls, sleep finally comes and will last through the spring. Bear is a funny-looking, rather unformed animal, who looks like he has a bit of hippo in him, and his friends are simply shaped as well. That ungainliness aside, Cooper's mottled watercolor artwork is cleverly designed to attract a child's eye; one double-page spread shows Bear butting heads with big ol' Moose, and another has him floating through the sky with the geese. This gets the sequence of the good-night ritual just right: motion, motion, motion, fall asleep. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2006 Booklist

PreS-Gr 1-Bear, a cub, cannot sleep. He watches his wakeful woodland friends from the mouth of his cold, dark cave and feels that life has treated him very unfairly. Why do they have fun while he has to hibernate? He gathers the other animals together and tells them that he wants to do all the things that they do, including flying across the lake with the geese. His friends suggest that his plan sounds exhausting, and they leave him alone as he cries out, "More! I want to play more!" Bear falls asleep as the first snow begins to descend, and his parents "carry him back to the warm cave, where he will sleep until spring." Cooper captures the indignation of a youngster who does not want to go to bed, especially when friends are allowed to stay up later. The watercolor-and-pencil illustrations softly portray the transition from fall to winter as well as from wakefulness to slumber. A striking spread, reminiscent of a constellation chart, transports the animals from the solid earth to a snowy nighttime sky, where Bear sleeps, surrounded by his friends. This quiet book with its dreamlike quality is ideal for bedtime sharing.-Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Cooper has expanded his point-of-view from diminutive (Ice Cream, 2002) to expansive (Magic Thinks Big, 2004), demonstrating that his focal point works well using either lens. When Bear can't sleep, he wonders why he has to stay in a cold cave when the other animals get to play outside; it's not fair. But he has a plan; he calls the animals together so he can race with the rabbits, wrestle with the moose, climb trees like the woodpecker and fly across the lake with the geese. As the animals fall asleep, Bear still wants to play--until he too, falls asleep, and his mother and father carry him back to his warm cave. Watercolor-and-ink illustrations depict the child-like behavior with vertical and horizontal panels to generate motion, using white borders that frame the mottled animal shapes and spareness of words. A charming bedtime tale for young ones. (Picture book. 3-5) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Bear can't seem to get in the hibernating groove. Worse yet, he believes that all the non-hibernating animals are having more fun. "It's not fair," grouses Bear (such economical sentences typify the narrative). So the cub emerges from his cave and announces to his fellow creatures that he wants some non-stop physical activity. In one of the loveliest spreads, Bear fulfills one wish ("I want to wrestle") by going head-to-head with a huge and somewhat bewildered moose; in the most surreal spread, two glorious horizontal peach-toned panels depict Bear flying through the air with a flock of geese. But when night falls, the animals refuse to keep playing; they need their rest-and, it turns out, Bear does, too. The story feels reminiscent of Cooper's Magic Thinks Big, although Bear is not quite as compelling an anti-hero as Magic, the big feline; the humor takes on a tone more pleading than wry. Still, that overly bright, entertain-me-now gleam in Bear's eye will likely strike a chord with even the most sedentary youngsters. Ages 3-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved