When a bear named Mack wakes up with a boy on his back, we know instantly that we're back in the droll and sweetly wacky world created by Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy in their first two highly successful picture books about a bunny-wearing boy and his sister Claire, who wakes up with a gator on her hair. Like A Boy and His Bunny and A Girl and Her Gator, this new picture book will entertain young children and their parents, and put smiles on the faces of their grandparents too. Mack, a type-A bear who is terribly over-scheduled, is initially stressed to discover the boy, named Zach, and tells him: "Here's the deal . . . I've got no time to slack. I'm looking at my schedule, and it is jam-packed." But in the end, after a rhyme-filled tour through Mack's fanciful schedule, Zach teaches the bear to slow down and enjoy life, rather than rush through it.
