Review - Bearded

Bearded
by Jeremy Billups
Date: 2015
Publisher: Billups Creative, LLC
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 40
Format: e-book
Source: iBooks

In this delightful and silly story written and illustrated by Jeremy Billups you'll get to meet a bear with a beard and tag along as he becomes rich and famous, wins beard-wrestling matches, gets knighted by a queen and meets other animals from all over the world with their very own beards.

How long is this bear's beard? Are there really other animals with beards? And what exactly is this bear keeping tucked away in his beard?

This picture book about kindness is perfect as a children's bedtime story and for fans of humorous books that encourage imagination and play such as Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Sciezka and Lane Smith, and Oliver Jeffers' Stuck, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, Lost and Found, and This Moose Belongs to Me.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is a bizarre little picture book. Okay, the bear has a beard. Why? I have no idea. He's got lots of friends with beards, and those beards make sense. But, for some reason, the bear has a long beard that he stores stuff in.

This probably would've worked better for me if the meter had been better. It's just so off. If I tried to read this aloud, I'd be stumbling over the words the whole time. I love rhyming picture books when they're done well. But they need to flow. This one doesn't.

Kids might get a giggle out of the premise. But I wouldn't recommend trying to read this one aloud.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.29 out of 5