Note: I received a digital galley through NetGalley. ( )

This story is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale. It tells of the events that occur after Jonas and Juniper are left alone to take care of the house and farm when their parents have to go and help grandma who is sick. As father leaves he shows them where he keeps the family fortune and makes them promise not to touch the gold but to always keep an eye on the door in case of thieves. The adventures they have and how they work together to try to sort out their mishaps make this a lovely story that children will enjoy. Between the oxen running away, losing the cheese, the dog running away with their lunch and more the twins have everything go wrong. It illustrates the dangers of rushing in, not thinking ahead, laziness, unplanned multitasking and others in a way children will understand and relate to. Older children will enjoy reading this and younger children will enjoy having it read to them and discussing the events and illustrations. The lessons to be learned and discussed from this book include how attitudes and behaviour can cause problems and how working together to a common goal can make anything more achievable.

Thank you to Netgalley and August House for providing me with a copy of the book to read and review. ( )

I would use this book in an 8th grade classroom when doing a lesson on language. One of the issues the bears run into in this book is they take their parents' instructions way too literally such as their parents telling them to not touch the brick that hides their family's money so Juniper tells the thieves to go and get the money they are owed and they end up taking all of it. This lesson would include a worksheet of sentences and students will have circle whether or not they think the information in the sentence should be taken literally or figuratively. Another use for this book would be in a 7th grade classroom when teaching about charcteristics of different types of books. And I would have them answer the prompt about why they think this book should be classified as folk literature.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest opinion. This does not influence my opinion in any shape or form.

This story was silly but had an important message of always listen to your parents because a lot of bad things could happen if you don't listen. The illustrations were cute and the story had a nice flow to it. Jonas and Juniper were a bit silly but they were also lucky that they were able to solve all the problems that had happened when their parents weren't home. Cristian found the story amusing and kept saying mommy maybe they should have listened to their mommy and daddy. I thought that was really cute. Overall, I thought this was a cute book but the situations that Jonas and Juniper got into were a bit over the top. ( )

Noodlehead tales are a rarity in publishing today, but this satisfying retelling, in which the foolish thinkers are bears, is satisfying, although following traditional gender roles. Warm watercolor illustrations accompany San Souci's warm, "tellable" story. Highly recommended. Review copy received via NetGalley.com. (135) ( )