By Amelia Hepworth
A big bear and a little bear spend a whole day loving each other in small ordinary ways, right up to the goodnight line every parent means.
A big bear and a little bear go through a day together, and every page is one small way the big one loves the little one. They wrestle and tumble, wade in the water, climb up high to see the view, watch the stars come out, and finally curl up together as the little bear falls asleep. There's barely any plot, and that's exactly right for the age it's for. The words are gentle and rhyming, the pictures are all warm browns and soft edges, and it builds to the line the whole book is named for, said over a sleeping cub: I love you to the moon and back.
This is the board book for the very youngest end of a baby shower shelf, the one that survives being chewed, dropped, and read six times before nap. It asks nothing of a one-year-old except to be held and told they're loved, and the sturdy pages mean they can hold it themselves. Big bear and little bear give a baby a simple picture of the thing that matters most, that a big one takes care of a little one all day long, and it closes on the phrase parents reach for when a whole heart won't fit into words.