Norris: the Bear Who Shared by Catherine Rayner

Norris: the Bear Who Shared by Catherine Rayner
Buy Norris: the Bear Who Shared by Catherine Rayner at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: A delightful story about the virtues of patience, friendship and sharing with illustration which make you want to hug Norris!
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: February 2011
Publisher: Orchard
ISBN: 978-1846163098
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Norris is a bear – a large, brown bear. He's also a very wise bear because he knows something which will always be useful to him. He knows about sharing. It all began when he saw the plorringe on the tree and he knew that plorringes are the best fruit of all. All he had to do was to wait for the fruit to fall. In the meantime Tulip and Violet discovered the plorringe too. They had a sniff at it – and it was gorgeous – and even a squeeze which showed that it was soft and fluffy – but what were they to do about Norris who was much bigger than them and could easily run away with the fruit?

Well, eventually, matters were taken out of Tulip and Violet's hands when the plorringe fell straight onto the bear's had with a WHOMP! and the plorringe belonged to Norris. What would happen now? Well, Norris wasn't just wise – he was kind too – and he peeled the plorringe and shared it with Violet and Tulip. From then on the three animals were very good friends and they shared everything.

Children don't readily share. Some seem to be more territorial than guard dogs and introducing the idea that sharing is actually a good idea isn't easy. Bear could easily had taken all the plorringe and Tulip and Violet would have found it difficult to complain because bear is large and might is right, right? Well, Norris looked beyond the easy reaction and realised that friends were more important than having all of the plorringe. It's a gentle story about the virtues of friendship, sharing and patience made all the more engaging by Catherine Rayner's gorgeous bold pictures. Bear is several bold splotches of brown with dots for eyes, but you still want to cuddle him.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

We met Catherine Rayner's illustrations before in Posy, but one of my all-time favourite books is Ernest about the moose who couldn't fit into his own book.

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