Title: Bobby the Bear and His Missing Dinner
Author: Ryan O’Connor
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 9781664132122
Pages: 26
Genre: Children’s Books
Reviewed by: Aly Avina

Read Book Review

One of the things I love most about a great children’s book is one that seamlessly weaves a life lesson into their story while still creating an elaborate and unique world for its young audience to enjoy. That is what children’s book author Ryan O’Connor accomplishes in his book, Bobby the Bear and His Missing Dinner. In this story, we meet Bobby the Bear, who is on his way to the lake to catch a fish for his dinner before the sun sets. But the twist comes in the form of his dinner being stolen once he is just about to eat it in front of a fire.

The circumstances of this involve all of his friends, since this first occurs when he turns his back to talk to his friend, Fred the Fox. Along his journey to find his missing dinner, he adds a new friend each time to his quest as Bobby grows more and more frustrated at the fact his dinner has mysteriously disappeared. By the end of it all, he discovers a friend of his has stolen his dinner out of hunger and an inability to catch their own, and Bobby quickly forgives them. He even looks at it as a teachable moment for his friend so they know it’s not okay to steal from your friends, but you can always ask to share, and in Bobby’s case — he will always be more than happy to do just that

There are many wonderful qualities for young readers to enjoy about this book, as well as their parents. First and foremost, teaching the value of not stealing from anyone while simultaneously showing how wonderful it is to share is truly fantastic for all children to learn. I also found this to be the perfect read for the age group it is meant for, which is 5-6-year-olds. I could easily see this read in kindergarten classes for story time. The illustrations done by artist Xiang Manke were beautiful and helped to further explain the elements of this story being told by the author. Furthermore, the fact that the author clearly touched on the different colors of flowers, as well as the different animals in this story, showed the importance of children in this age group learning such things through the art of storytelling and illustrations.

Overall, this is a wonderful children’s book and I would highly recommend it to all parents and their children to read for bedtime or story time. The children will surely enjoy the animal characters and their friendship with one another as well as the gorgeous, vivid illustrations that help the story move along at the perfect pace.