Can Bears Ski?
by Raymond Antrobus; illus. by Polly Dunbar
Primary    Candlewick    40 pp.    g
11/20    978-1-5362-1266-2    $16.99

Bear’s home is loud — full of Dad Bear’s rumbling, shaking, and trembling — and our protagonist enjoys the commotion. Perplexingly, though, Dad and everyone else seems to keep asking, “Can bears ski?” Bear brushes it off — until one day Dad Bear takes the young narrator to meet an “au-di-ol-o-gist.” What follows is a thoughtful sequence that illustrates what a visit to an audiologist might look like. Bear has hearing loss, and while there are different therapies available, Bear tries hearing therapy and lip-reading lessons first. Later come a pair of “plastic ears called hearing aids.” At this point in the story, a suddenly bright double-page spread shouts the words, “CAN YOU HEAR ME?” — and the startled protagonist realizes that this was the question everyone had been asking all along. The ink-and-paint illustrations are subtle and understated. Warm tones softly illuminate the story, punctuated by bold primary colors, in this compassionately told book.

From the November/December 2020 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.