Detectives Are Fun! Especially When They're Bad Bears...

When I was at the library recently, looking for my latest load of children's books to help me get my writer's juices flowing, my friend pointed out the book Bad Bear Detectives. "Detectives are fun," she said. "My brothers and I used to pretend we were detectives all the time." So detectives it was.

Written by Daniel Pinkwater and illustrated by Jill Pinkwater, Bad Bear Detectives is described on the jacket as a "picture book noir." It begins with a news blurb about a missing shipment of muffins and the ominous statement from Police Captain Hare that "This could be the work of bears." He points immediately to Irving and Muktuk, a known pair of polar troublemakers with a weakness for muffins residing at the Bayonne Zoo.

Once they find themselves so accused and faced with the dreadful prospect of being locked in their rooms at night and being forced to pick up trash around the zoo for a year, the polar bears are determined to clear their names and so embark upon a quest to solve the mystery of who really took the muffins. Their first task is to acquire hats, since that is what detectives wear, and the following exchange is indicative of the silliness that will ensue.

"Isn't it a bad idea, when we are going to prove we did not steal something, to start out by stealing hats?" Irving asks.
"We have no choice," Muktuk says. "Without hats, we would be spotted as polar bears in a minute."

The story is written in the present tense, which I tend to find annoying, but it seems to work pretty well here, giving the book a gritty sense of immediacy. Muktuk is the more pro-active of the two; Irving tends to go along with his friend's plans, not always understanding them. Their investigation is thorough and eventually leads them to the solution, though it may not be precisely the one they were searching for...

The illustrations are fun, consisting mostly of the great white expanses of the bears, who are surprisingly lanky when standing upright. One wears a red hat with a yellow stripe, the other a yellow hat with a red stripe, but I can't tell which is which. It adds a nice splash of color, though. Most of the backgrounds are a combination of dark and murky browns and blues, adding to the "noir" feel.

The writing seems to be geared at slightly older children who would be more likely to understand that this book is meant as a parody of established detective stories. But no matter what age they are, lovers of muffins, bears or mysteries should get a kick out of the off-beat Bad Bear Detectives.