As winter approaches a mother bear tells her cub it’s time to sleep, but the small bear balks. “I don’t want to go to sleep.” For every caution the mother bear offers—winter is cold . . . it’s long . . . the snow will be deep—the determined young bear is ready with a comeback. To her final warning, “Here comes a storm,” the little bear says, “That will be fun.” And it is, until the snow grows so thick and white (on a series of wordless page spreads) that the cub loses sight of its mother. “Mamma!!” Claudia Rueda’s elegantly spare and wonderfully warm and comforting picture book is told through a brief back-and-forth dialogue between the two bears, set against uncluttered illustrations that use rounded shapes, curving lines, and just a handful of colors to convey character, mood, and feeling, including welcome reassurance when mother and cub are reunited. (Ages 2–4)

When a mother bear tries to convince her little bear to go to sleep for the winter, little bear would rather stay awake and play, until a storm makes him reconsider.