The Three Bears by Byron Barton (Harper, 1991). Byron Barton’s illustrated story is as basic as it can be, yet I have always enjoyed Mr. Barton’s simple stories and illustrations for a young child. He seems to show that less is more, that patterns and simplicity seem to capture the reader in ways that detailed illustrations do not. There is nothing distracting in this book, but there are details: flowers in the words, steam coming from the bowls of porridge, Goldilocks’ flowers left along the way. Mr. Barton’s rendition is one of my son’s favorite versions of the story, probably because of Mr Barton’s unique method of illustrating a familiar story.
