Jeram brings her gifts in ursine portraiture (evidenced in Kiss Goodnight) to bear on a sweet, if rather neatly resolved text by McBratney, her collaborator in Guess How Much I Love You. A mother and father bear face an age-old dilemma: how can they prove there's enough parental love for all three of their cubs? Mommy and Daddy may insist they have "the most wonderful baby bears in the whole wide world," but the baby bears reason, "We can't all be the best." Jeram shows each cub anxiously pondering a possible shortcoming: the eldest has no patches ("Maybe his mommy really really liked patches"), the middle one is the only girl, and the littlest is... well, small. But Daddy persuades his cubs that those qualities do not matter. He recalls that when the bears were born, Mommy Bear declared each one "the most perfect" example of a first, second and third baby bear, respectively. While this answer mollifies the cubs (they fall asleep on their mother's capacious tummy), readers may find a reassurance tied to the siblings' birth order to be more unsettling than comforting. Jeram's pictures are so beguiling, however, that she smoothes over this considerable rough spot. By sketching in only the barest suggestions of setting, she allows the bears to speak far more eloquently through their postures, expressions and cuddles. Ages 3-7. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

PreS-K-The creators of Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick, 1995) offer another reassuring tale. Each night, Mommy and Daddy Bear tuck in their three beloved cubs with the same phrase, "You are the most wonderful baby bears in the whole wide world!" Well, even little bears are discerning enough to doubt hyperbole and so they question their mother's empirical basis for this observation. Her reply, "Because your daddy told me," mollifies the youngsters until they begin to question their own ability to measure up to the wonderfulness standard. The first worries that he doesn't have patches like the others, the second that she's not a boy, and the third that he's the littlest. They approach their father with the query, "Who is your favorite? We can't all be the best." Daddy Bear explains that they are, repeating how Mommy Bear exclaimed over each of them at their birth ("the most perfect first baby bear," "the most perfect second baby bear," etc.). Satisfied, the trio is able to drift off into peaceful slumber. The quiet, loving tone of the text is echoed in the muted shades of the watercolor-and-pencil illustrations offset by soothing cream-colored backgrounds. While this story will not be enough to put to rest children's basic insecurities and endless jockeying for their parents' most-favored status, it does inject some unobtrusive bibliotherapy into a deftly presented bedtime story.-Rosalyn Pierini, San Luis Obispo City-County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.