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Mother Bruce


                                           

Mother Bruce
by Ryan T. Higgins
Disney Hyperion, 2015. Unpaged. Picture Book

     Bruce is a bear who lives by himself and is grumpy. The one thing that cheered him up was to eat eggs to which he had helped himself from various nests in the neighborhood. He cooked them up in a lot of different ways using recipes he found on the internet. But Bruce is surprised one day when he leaves some eggs on the stove to boil, and they hatch. What to do with those goslings who think he is their mother? Chicks on toast, maybe? Instead, Bruce takes care of them from when they are annoying little things, through when they are surly teenage things, to when they are grownups and should be off on their own. Bruce thinks when it is time for the birds to fly south he will be free from the responsibilities of his unexpected family, but they don't know how or why to fly south and they keep coming back. How Bruce "solves" his goose problem will delight youngsters and their significant elders alike.  Great illustrations, too.

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