Sometimes We Fall

A meaningful and tender tale of learning through experience.

A young bear literally looks up to its mother in this reassuring picture book about learning to take risks. A mother bear perches in a plum tree amid a field of golden, waving grasses, where her cub sits, longing for the delicious-looking plums above: "It's a problem when you want a purple plum, too." As the pages turn, de Sève (This Story Is Not About a Kitten) describes the plums with accumulating adjectives that hint at the cub's desire for the "sweet-smelling, juicy, ripe purple fruit." But as the cub contemplates joining Mama, it ruminates on possible perils: the leap upward could fall short, and the climb might result in scrapes, or even a tumble from the branches. Sanguine Mama doesn't minimize the cub's anxieties, reiterating the idea that "sometimes we wobble" and also that "it's okay." Finally, the cub climbs, reaches for a plum, and falls-- Gardiner (Small Places, Close to Home) catches the endearingly ungraceful tumble in midair--but a plum drops, too, and one taste is motivation enough for the cub to dust off and try again. The spare text's voices--Mama's is soothing, the cub's more apprehensive--honor the duo's differing points of view, while gouache and colored pencil art with elegant shapes and subtle earth tones offer lovely, ongoing visual consolation and comfort. Ages 4-8. Agent (for author and illustrator): Steven Malk, Writers House. (Aug.)

Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

★ What a lovely story of parenting and childhood, of paving the way without smoothing it. A meaningful and tender tale of learning through experience. —Kirkus Reviews, starred review