★Yum, Hyewon. Good Bear, Bad Bear. illus. by Hyewon Yum. 40p. Holiday House/Neal Porter. Nov. 2026. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9780823460540.
PreS-Gr 2–As a young child enumerates the things older sister can do, comparison leads to impatience and frustration: exasperated, younger sister opines, “My sister can read. I can’t read and never will,” and “She never loses anything. I even lost my front tooth!” She concludes that older sister is the good girl and, “that’s why I can’t help but be the bad one.” Then Mom gives each pale-skinned, black-haired sibling an identical toy bear. Older sister names hers “Good Bear,” while younger sister declares: “I know exactly what to name mine.” Spread-length illustrations hilariously capture their contrasting play. Older sister and Good Bear read books, sip tea, and play with blocks; younger sister and Bad Bear paint their faces, gobble cookies, and knock down blocks. Well-paced for comic effect, this is a great read-aloud. Yum’s distinctive crayon, colored pencil, and watercolor illustrations lend a childlike perspective and feature well-chosen details. Eventually, the sisters ride bikes (little sister on training wheels) and agree to be “neither good nor bad. We are just us.” The book ends with a playful, wordless twist that deliciously underscores this point. VERDICT A well-crafted tale that respects the emotional intelligence of children. Reminiscent of Kevin Henkes’s “Mouse Books,” this deserves a spot in school and public libraries.Tuesday, September 22, 2026
PW Reviews Good Bear, Bad Bear :)[STARRED REVIEW]
⭐️Good Bear, Bad Bear [STARRED REVIEW]
Hyewon Yum. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8234-6054-0
Positioning a stuffed bear as the screen for a young child’s projections, this emotionally astute picture book from Yum (A Spoonful of the Sea) reframes the labels kids sometimes pin on themselves. As the book opens, its narrator, the smaller of two pale-skinned, dark-haired siblings, explains, “My sister can read./ I can’t. And I never will.” Moreover, they report, the bigger child has tidier habits, tights without holes, and “never loses anything.” With a child’s ironclad logic, the protagonist determines that their sister is “the good girl”—and internalizes being “the bad one.” When the two receive identical stuffies, and the narrator’s sister dubs her own Good Bear, “I know exactly what to name mine.” And indeed, “Good Bear sips the tea. Bad Bear gobbles up cookies” and even ends up wearing a scowl. Rendered with colored pencil, crayon, and watercolor, the empathetic and observant artwork deals in round-cheeked figures and buttery yellows, letting self-recrimination sting without tipping visually into gloom. When Bad Bear emerges from the washing machine without one eye, it takes the bigger sister’s love to gently dismantle her sibling’s premise about the bears and the children, too. Good Bear may be calm and kind, but Bad Bear is “funny, brave, and interesting,” she argues—and who wants to be “only Good or Bad your entire life,” anyway? Moving from certitude into subtlety, it’s a wise celebration of the multifaceted self. Ages 4–8. (Nov.)
Kirkus Reviews Good Bear, Bad Bear! [STARRED REVIEW!]
GOOD BEAR, BAD BEAR [STARRED REVIEW!]
Author: Hyewon Yum
Illustrator: Hyewon Yum
Review Issue Date: September 1, 2026
Online Publish Date: August 3, 2026
Publisher:Neal Porter/Holiday House
Pages: 40
Price ( Hardcover ): $18.99
Publication Date: November 3, 2026
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 9780823460540
Section: Children's
A little sister has a big inferiority complex.
“My sister can read. I can’t. And I never will,” grouses the story’s narrator, who appears to be the younger sib. “My sister brushes her hair every day. My hair can’t be tamed.” When the girls’ mom, who remains physically absent from these pages (subtext: Sometimes kids can solve their own problems), gives them identical teddy bears, the narrator’s sister names hers—what else?—Good Bear. The narrator knows “exactly what to name mine.” Bad Bear becomes her alter ego: He torments the family dog and helps the narrator knock down her sister’s block house. When Bad Bear loses an eye in the washing machine, the narrator no longer wants him. But leave it to her sister to trade her Good Bear for Bad Bear, which sparks more (hilarious) resentment from the narrator. Although there’s no adult perspective to decode the sisters’ psychology for readers, they’ll totally get it: When the narrator’s sister says that “Bad Bear is funny, brave, and interesting,” she’s reminding her sib of her positive attributes, and the sisters soon make peace. In Yum’s mixed-media art, featuring invitingly plain-as-day colored-pencil shadings, the sisters, who appear to be of East Asian descent, resemble their personalities: one is unkempt, the other tidy. In the story’s wonderful wordless closer, Good Bear reveals her other side while the sisters sleep.
A funny, feelings-front tale with a light touch. (Picture book. 4-8)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)