It is with great pleasure that I am joining the blog tour for Meet the Bears by Kate Peridot and Becca Hall.

Kate Peridot is a prolific writer who loves research. Her research skills were honed by a love of books, studying for an international business degree, working as a marketer for food companies and then as a freelance writer.

She writes wild and adventurous children’s fiction and non-fiction about animals, people and STEM that encourage a can-do spirit, a quest for knowledge and a sense of adventure. Meet the Bears certainly does capture this essence.

The illustrator, Becca Hall, has a thing for nature, which often finds its way into her artwork. 

She is constantly finding inspiration from the natural world around her. Over the years, she has worked on an array of projects, including illustrated maps, product and packaging illustrations, branding, book illustrations, website art, and even adorable pet portraits. She also has her own range of giftware. 

My stop on the tour will take the form of a book review:

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Title: Meet the Bears

Written by: Kate Peridot

Illustrated by: Becca Hall

Published by: Welbeck Publishing

Meet the Bears by Kate Peridot is the first in the series of enticing creative non-fiction books that focus on the different species of animals that can be found all over the world. This book concentrates, as the title would suggest, on bears.

It opens with a little girl and her teddy bears in her bedroom and her father telling her how ‘great’ bears are. They pack their bear spotting kit and set off on an adventure to discover the features of all the different species of bear so she can identify her own teddy bears family.

We learn there are eight different species of bear. We also discover that some animals people think are bears are not actually bears. It was a shock to read the koala is one of these animals.

Each species of bear has two beautiful double-page spreads full of facts on their general appearance, the food they eat, their fur, whether they hibernate and where in the world they live.

I was again surprised to find out how few bears actually hibernate. Meet thd Bears is full of interesting and thought-provoking facts like these. Proving this book is suitable for readers of all ages who wish to expand their knowledge of bears.

I enjoyed the addition of the girl’s reason why her own teddy cannot be each particular species using information found in the text and felt it was a satisfactory conclusion when she finally identified the species of her Teddy bear, which gave ghe book a lovely ahhhh factor.

Becca Hall’s illustrations capture the features of the different bears perfectly. One of my favourites is the black bear asleep in the tree. Becca also demonstrates a fantastic loving relationship between father and daughter. I particularly like the way the artwork bleeds to the edge of the page in each of the first spreads.

At the back of the book there is a map with a key of where each species is found and a table comparing the size of each bear. This is a useful and fascinating appendage that young children will love to study and assess. On the very last page there was also some interesting information on how to stay safe in bear country. I believe even children in the UK, where we do not have bears will be enthralled by this.

Meet the Bears would make the ideal gift for any child interested in nature and animal conservation. It can also be used in the classroom or home schooling to support work on animals and their environments and adaptations. As well as this it would provide and excellent springboard for children to research other animals and their different adaptations, such as apes, ducks, turtles, wild cats, etc. to name but a few.

Another exceptionally concise and informative illustrated non-fiction picture book from Kate Peridot, pitched perfectly at KS1 and lower KS2.

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To read my interview with Kate Peridot you can check out: Blog Tour – Caring Conservationists by Kate Peridot

To find out more about Kate Peridot and her books you can visit her website: www.kateperidot.com, or follow her on Twitter @kateperidot, Instagram @kateperidot and on Facebook @kate.peridot.7

To find out more about Becca Hall and her artwork you can visit her website: https://www.beccahallillustration.co.uk, or follow her on Instagram @beccahallillustration and Facebook @BeccaHallIllustration.

You can purchase a copy of Meet the Bears by Kate Peridot and Becca Hall from most independent booksellers or online from uk.bookshop.org, an organisation with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops.

To take a look at the other stops on the tour check out the tour schedule:

I would like to thank Anna Cole from Hachette Books for sending me a hardback review copy of Meet the Bears to review on my blog.

And if you have got this far in the post I would like to end with a couple of bear jokes.

What did the teddy bear say after dinner? I’m stuffed.

What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear.

Please feel free to comment with your own bear jokes below, even if it is just to prove you’ve read the post.