Polarity Bear Tours The Zoo Review

Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo: A Central Park Adventure is a whimsical little picture book for any child over the age of four who loves reading about animals. Polarity is a bear who seems a wee bit depressed, or bored with her home in a cage inside the Central Park Zoo. She enjoys the zoo but what good is that when she is caged and not able to explore? She arrived at the zoo when animals still lived in cages and not more natural habitats. These days, many zoos in North America have more spacious environments that more closely resemble life in the wild. 

So one day, Polarity hatches a plan. She squeezes the bars of her cage apart, when she angrily sticks out her tongue at the world and the cage breaks, freeing her for the evening. She tours the zoo when nobody else is around. She rides the merry-go-round, dances around, swims with the sea lions and milks every ounce of fun out of her night. 

The prose is lovely here and Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo: A Central Park Adventure is told in rhyme. The rhyme however is never forced. It flows in a manner that supports and builds the story. Lately we have seen too many children’s books with rhyme that impedes narrative because it is so obviously forced. Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo is fun conceptually and a read that demands a bit of skill on the part of the reader. Challenging words and place names add to the reading level and experience here. Although I believe some 4-year-old readers might be interested in hearing this book the skill level is more aptly set about the age 6-7 and up in my opinion. 

Polarity was published in 2011 in the US. The setting is fun and the author Sue de Cuevas reads kids well. She is a specialist on the Bronte Sisters and used to teach at Harvard, but here she brings a smart little story to an audience of growing readers and she pens the narrative with a sophisticated touch. The illustrations here are dynamite. One of my favourite things to do when we review books here is to ask my daughter’s opinions on the story. Ainsley, 9, enjoyed the story and very much likes books about animals. But her one conistent comment was about the illustrations. “I loved the pictures.” We both had trouble choosing just one because there are so many brilliant pictures in this book. Illustrator Wendy Rasmussen elevates this book to art with her incredible pictures of Polarity dancing, swimming with sea lions (my favourite) and then collapsing in exhaustion at end of the night. Rasmussen has illustrated over 25 books, many of which were about animals. I cannot stress enough how magical and captivating her pictures are. These are frameable pages, magnificently rendered with emotion and life. Each picture captures Polarity experiences a larger than life adventure and emotion. Spectacular art.