YOU’RE ALL MY FAVORITES
by Sam McBratney & illustrated by Anita Jeram
More cozy family bonding from the creators of Guess How Much I Love You (1995). When three cubs want to know which is their parents’ favorite, Mama and Papa Bear provide inclusive but satisfying answers. The bears, sporting a subtext-engendering array of hues and markings, pose closely together in various ursine or human postures amid minimal natural settings; Mama and Papa are plainly inseparable, and the young ones, though aware of their physical differences, hold paws on the cover and are, throughout, poster “children” for sibling harmony. McBratney and Jeram again combine to address a common childhood anxiety in a relaxed, irresistibly soothing way, and the competitiveness that mars their bestselling earlier title is much reduced here. (Picture book. 3-5)