View source for Frida and Bear by Anthony Browne and Hanne Bartholin

{{infobox2
|title=Frida and Bear
|author=Anthony Browne and Hanne Bartholin
|reviewer=Zoe Morris
|genre=For Sharing
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1406353990
|pages=32
|publisher=Walker Books
|date=March 2015
|aznuk=140635399X
|aznus=140635399X
|cover=140635399X
|website=
|video=
|summary=A story and rules in one, this is a book that's fun to read and a game that's fun to play.
}}
Frida, the elephant, and Bear, the, um, bear, are great friends who love to play together. This book teaches us one of their favourite games and it stems from their mutual love of drawing. If you didn’t think that was a two-player activity think again.

One day Bear runs out of inspiration, so Frida scrawls a shape and hands it to him. Lo and behold, he gets an idea and turns it into a dog. Then it’s his turn. Frida immediately sees his shape as the head of a fish so adds a body, a tail and some scales to finish off the creature. Back and forth they go, starting a picture off for one another and letting their partner turn it into a creation.

This book is fun because it has a bit of a story but more than that it shows children a fun game they can play with friends or siblings, or even with parents. You need virtually nothing for it, just a pen or pencil and some paper, but it’s more fun, interactive and imaginative than just straight-up drawing and it adds a nice, challenging dimension to the subject. Towards the end, they even branch off into using objects, like a twig or a scrap as their starting shape. Why be limited by a doodle on a page? There are lots of ways you could play but the key thing is it has taken a normally quite solitary activity and turned it into a communicative one where you work together and talk about what you see.

The characters are rather lovely, too. Frida looks like she’s stepped straight out of [[Babar's Celesteville Games by Laurent de Brunhoff]] and bear is more of a boy than a beast, and not scary – in the French edition the book is called Frida and Little Bear which sums him up nicely.

I’d like to thank the publishers for sending us this book. It’s a little bit different than your usual story, but it was well explained and beautifully presented with just the right amount of formal instruction to it so you can try it at home.

I was never a good drawer as a child, but colouring in, I liked. [[The Big Beautiful Colouring Book by Hannah Davies]] is a fab book if your preference lies with mine.  You might also enjoy [[Willy The Wimp by Anthony Browne]].

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[[Category:Anthony Browne]]
[[Category:Hanne Bartholin]]