Book Review: 'The New LiBEARian'

What a fantastic children’s book!

When The New Libearian by Alison Donald and Alex Willmore was available at the library, I had to grab it. This book tells a story of a diverse group of children who sets out to search for Ms. Merryweather. The first clue they found was footprints—not human footprints, but paw footprints, which belongs to a bear.

Next, the children discovered that the librarian’s desk is sticky with spilled honey. The spilled honey had a huge mess that it covered in shredded and torn books.

Finally, what caught the children by surprise was seeing a “new librarian” behind the desk—a real bear, who wore a name tag that says “librarian.” After this great discovery, the kids were excited and ask the bear to read them a scary story.

Baby Bear roars, growls, and stomps to entertain the children.

Of course, the bear agreed and makes growling sounds, which make the kids happy. Once the bear opens a book about bears, he starts to roar, growl, stomp, and roar some more. When Ms. Merryweather appears, she didn’t notice the bear. Now, her pick for story time is called “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” But wait, something is missing in this book—where’s the baby bear in the story?

Take a good guess!

The same bear who left paw footprints, spilled honey, and entertained the kids with scary stories was the baby bear all along. As Ms. Merryweather and the kids were looking for Baby Bear, Baby Bear appeared sneakily behind Ms. Merryweather.

Noticing his movements, Ms. Merryweather found him and ordered him to go back to the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” story. Baby Bear went back home, and Ms. Merryweather continued with the story. As she continues reading, Ms. Merryweather noticed that Goldilocks was missing as well.

No one seemed to notice that Goldilocks was among them with a wink.

Lesson Learned

There are a lot of takeaways from this book. Expect the unexpected. You never know who is at the other side. It may be someone you know, or someone you don’t know.

If you want to find out who this mystery person is, always find clues that leads to the other side. Above all else, always have witnesses around you so that you will not feel alone or have a voice.

The overall writing in this book is lovely. I enjoyed the dialogue, which allows the author to play around with different voices. There are lots of growling, shouting, and it builds up into a suspense. In addition, this book is a joy to read out loud and I’m looking forward to a series from this book in the future.

What I enjoyed about this book is the children’s interactive personalities, when it comes to finding clues and guessing what’s going to happen next. This is a great interactive way to use your full potential.

A Magical Story

The illustration of this book looked spectacular. This book is very simple and easy to read for kids who is just starting to read. For the illustrations, it had bright colors that has a magical feel to them. I adore all of the children’s face expressions and personalities. As a picture book, it was well written. The illustration was beautiful, and this is enough for me.

The children in particular was very into the bear as they observed his timely movements and tactics. Overall, Baby Bear was created very well. The New LiBEARian is the epitome of what both engagement and excitement really mean. Also, this book shows magical places for your child to explore, learn, and make new friends. That is what makes this impeccable book so special.

This is a must buy!

Get your own The New LiBEARian book here.

Thank you for reading!

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Until next time, friends! ^_^