10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the Waterfront, June 22, 2007
This review is from: Bad Bear Detectives: An Irving and Muktuk Story (Irving & Muktuk Story) (Hardcover)
Those Bayonne Bears are back, and there's not a safe muffin in all of New Jersey. "Bad Bear Detectives" is another delicious book in Daniel and Jill Pinkwater's hilarious "Irving and Muktuk" series, and it's one of their funniest. While Daniel Pinkwater specializes in combining the outrageous with the dryly understated (much as James Stevenson does in his stories about Grandpa and Wainey), `Detectives' has some of the funniest lines of all the "Bear" books, and Jill Pinkwater's colorful backgrounds and imaginatively drawn backdrops and bears (the latter are so uncomplicated and sheer white that they seem to leap off the page) engage the reader and convey the slyly innocent, but oh-so-guilty personalities of the muffin-obsessed bears.
When determined Police Captain Hare fingers Irving and Muktuk as the prime suspects in a heist of "expensive Italian designer muffins from the waterfront, the bears take a break from cheating at poker to proclaim their innocence:
"This is bad," Muktuk says, "Make one mistake and anytime a muffin is missing, the coppers are all over you."
It is unfair, "Irving says.
"Of course, we have made more than one mistake," Muktuk says.
Unfortunately, their history of muffin larceny (stretching from Alaska to the Bayonne muffin factory) is so well known that not even the zoo director sides with them, and even offers a punishment: "If it is proven that they took the muffins, they will be locked in their [apartment-like] room at night, and they will have to pick up trash around the zoo for a year."
However, the bears are so convinced of their innocence (or have a huge capacity for denial) that they resolve to "remove the smirch from their names," by stealing detective hats and finding the true culprit. "Isn't it a bad idea, where we are going to prove that we did not steal something, to start out by stealing hats?" Irving asks. In Pinkwater's usual deadpan style, Muktuk replies, "We have no choice...without hats, we would be spotted as polar bears in a second."
There's only one soft spot in the story, some good detective-bad detective interrogation of a watchman that doesn't quite fit, but two pages later Pinkwater returns to prime Irving and Muktuk form: "If you were a bear..." Muktuk says. "I am a bear," Irving says. IF you were a bear, and you took the muffins, what would you do next?" Muktuk asks. "I would eat them!" Muktuk says. With their working theory that bears must have stolen the muffins, Irving and Muktuk have inside knowledge of the muffins' location. They're so familiar with the loot that they pick up the smell of "mirtilli dell'italia, or blueberries of Italy, and--surprise!--the scent of bear! Still hanging onto their excuse that they're after some other muffin-loving bears, Irving and Muktuk lead us back to the Bayonne zoo ( ! ), where they find the muffins behind a waterfall next to the polar bear pool! They're slightly soggy, but good enough to finish off.
"So, it was us! We did take the muffins!" Muktuk says. "Because we are bad bears," Irving says. "Yes, we are, Muktuk says."
And this is a very excellent book. In the Pinkwaters' hands, the bears are clever symbols of young children, so egocentric and single-minded in their hedonistic pursuits that their heartfelt tale of innocence lasts right up to the muffin-eating conclusion. As they eat the last muffin morsels, they know that punishment will follow the crime, but their eyes seem to say that nothing will hold them for long--and nothing ever does. Good for them, and good for all of us, because there's nothing quite as delightful as the blueberry muffin-eating bears of Bayonne.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A comedy routine masquerading as a children's book!, January 27, 2007
This review is from: Bad Bear Detectives: An Irving and Muktuk Story (Irving & Muktuk Story) (Hardcover)
This was a thoroughly fun book to read. When I review a kid's book I normally flip through all the pages to see the pictures in order to see if the pictures tell the story. At first glance I thought this was going to be a dud of a book since the pictures don't really tell the story. But when I started reading the text I was pleasantly surprised. It had me chuckling a bit at spots. It's 30 pages long.
The story is about two dumb polar bears that live in the Bayonne NJ zoo. They are accused of stealing food and they go about trying to figure out who actually stole the food so they won't get in trouble. While reading the text in this book I felt like I was sitting in the audience of a Toastmasters humorous speech contest and I was listening to the winning speaker give his talk.
I would have liked the book better if the illustrations had been larger and more detailed so children would get more from them when they see them during a reading. But the book is really the text, and the illustrations are a sideshow. 5 stars!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
My Son's New Favorite, January 23, 2010
This review is from: Bad Bear Detectives: An Irving and Muktuk Story (Irving & Muktuk Story) (Hardcover)
As my son approaches 6 and gets a tad more sophisticated, the Bad Bear books have overtaken Mo Willems's Piggy and Gerald series as his favorite read. The mischeivous side of him gets full expression through these bears and their muffin-pilfering antics.
In this one, you see the bears accused of a great muffin crime; they tearily claim innocence. Now, if you are concerned about kids lying, this is not the book for you. The bears either lie beautifully, or have managed to tell themselves that they didn't do it so much or so often that they truly believe it to be a fact-- much like children do. They rediscover the muffins they had stolen and hidden while attempting to clear their "smirched" names.
Funny and cleverly written as ever-- this series is an outstanding read-aloud that parents will actually enjoy as much as their kids.
And if the deviousness of these bears are too much for you, there is always Piggy and Gerald.
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