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Growing Up

Children's literature didn't die with Maurice Sendak. There are many living artists who work on great picture books, and my "contemporary-writer pantheon" includes: Kevin Henkes, Jerry Pinkney, Christian Robinson, and David Ezra Stein.

That last name--Stein--had a hit with "Leaves," about a silly (but gentle) bear who enjoys the fall. Stein writes at home in Brooklyn, often with a small child clawing at his lap.

I am not very well-versed in Stein's works, but a title I keep returning to is "Honey." This is the sequel to "Leaves." In this one, the bear wakes up from hibernating and dreams about honey. But it's not time yet. The bear delivers an ode to honey and its properties: visual ("clear"), olfactory ("spicy"), tactile ("thick"). The bear would like to distract himself, but the mind has other plans: Everything in the world begins to *resemble* honey ("the stream clear as honey," "the berries bursting like honey," "the sun golden as honey....")

Like Henkes, Stein is not interested in melodrama. A sneering villain doesn't arrive. The bear delights himself in the rain, and in a waterfall, and eventually the passage of time does its magic. The bear enjoys a new bucket of honey.

I like the tummy that is mirrored by a "fat" cloud in the sky. I like the tiny tongue protruding from the bear's mouth. I like the sense of writerly economy ("It was his second year....") And I like the way the reader must make inferences. ("OUCH!" said the bear....Bees don't like to be disturbed....)

This story is light as a feather, and worth reading. Five stars.





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