Sophie is excited to visit her Grandma in Vancouver. But when it comes time to leave home in Newfoundland, she can’t find her best friend Bear. Bear watches her departure sadly from the window and vows to find her again one day. For the remainder of the book, Sophie’s travels, depicted on the left-hand page, are parallelled by Bear’s own on the right-hand page.

These adventures trace an alphabetic path: for instance, the first page (“A for Adventure”) sees Sophie exclaiming, “What a big adventure!,” while on the opposite page (“B for Beluga Whale”), Bear shouts, “What big bubbles!” as he floats in the ocean admiring a whale. All through the book, the two segments of text echo or contrast with each other. At the same time, the scenes move across Canada from east to west, the provinces and territories labelled by banners pulled by airplanes across the sky. On the final spread, the two friends are reunited in Vancouver harbour.

Where Are You, Bear? is simultaneously a travel book, an alphabet book, and a narrative of pursuit. Sean L. Moore’s bright, cartoonish characters, with their oversized heads and eyes and their vibrant primary colours, will appeal to the target audience. There is also a map and helpful explanations of the scenes depicted. Although the text does not always link clearly to the letters being illustrated, this minor flaw will likely go unnoticed by young readers eager to see the reunion of Sophie and Bear.