Tuesday's Bear
A Tale of the Lost & Found
In the heartwarming picture book Tuesday’s Bear, an abandoned toy joins a warm and bustling household, his once sad story redeemed through new love.
In Alexandra Davis’s enchanting picture book Tuesday’s Bear, a forgotten stuffed bear finds a second home.
At a bus station where items are daily mislaid, Bear joins the lost and found. Its unclaimed items are destined for the dump. When an enterprising man buys the lot, intending to refurbish it for a yard sale, Bear connects with the man’s son. Soon, he joins their bustling household.
Told in sequential prose that follows the days of the week, the story’s implied environmentalism is clear. It details the family’s preparations for the sale: They transport the lost items home and organize clothing and untangle jewelry, all while Bear watches. Christian ideas about renewal also fold into the tale though lines that reflect on how Bear “had been rescued and cleaned and healed and paid for.” Such phrasing is more overt than the rest of the text, though.
Its language straightforward and its message heartwarming, the story is nonetheless too general at times. Facts about Doyle Owens, a real man in the 1970s who created a business from unclaimed luggage, are held off until an end note; within the text, the man and others are cheerful, nameless figures. As a result, Bear’s adoption is somewhat depersonalized. Still, the trash-to-treasure concept is satisfying, as is the fact that the objects that were lost with Bear at the station each find a new home by the end.
Orange and blue tones permeate the evocative vintage illustrations; they reinforce themes of homecoming, moving from the shadowy, jumbled lost-and-found room on through Bear’s sunlit place at a boy’s bedside. Imaginative flourishes elevate the story too: When Bear dreams “of adventuring,” a jungle expedition ensues; when he plays with a hobby horse, it transforms into a real one. Packed objects spill and tower in the images, and people sift through and repair them. Reflecting warm flurries of activity, these clever illustrations make maximal use of their double-page spreads, as with a laundromat scene that depicts sudsy chaos and that morphs into a beach scene for rubber ducks.
A whimsical allegorical picture book, Tuesday’s Bear is about a toy that experiences a second life because of thrifty resellers.
Reviewed by
Karen Rigby
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
