Summary: A bear and a rat celebrate the bear's birthday by riding up the river on a boat they found to give it back to it's owner. Along the way they find a hat, a fishing pole and then a man that had lost all those things and was floating along on a log. They rescue the man and find that it was all his stuff that they encountered. The boat sank and they all made it to safety where they parted ways and the rat gave bear his birthday present - a ball and a cake.

Genre: This is fantasy because bear's and rats do not talk. Also, men and bears do not usually get along that way. Usually the man would have been scared silly to come across a bear like that. Animals cannot drive boats or fish with fishing poles and they do not wear clothes or celebrate birthdays.

Plot: The story goes up as we find out about the bear's birthday surprise and then we find the boat and it plateaus, then they ride up the stream and our anticipation builds as we see the hat and pole and then man and then it climaxes as the boat sinks and then it goes down as we see the man leave and then spikes a little as we find out the birthday surprise and then it evens out at the end.

Media: ink/watercolor

Nice illustrations, decent read-aloud, maybe a little long. Bear's birthday adventure, he finds a boat and goes for a ride. ( )

An excited Bear mistakenly believes that Rat has given him a boat for his birthday. An unexpected adventure is the result.

The text is way too long in this picture book. I didn't feel like the ending was enough payoff for all that text! It's a sweet story, but nothing particularly special. The illustrations are nice, but not enough to make up for the story problems, in my opinion. ( )