Mother Bruce by Ryan T. HigginsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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MOTHER BRUSE
BY RYAN T. HIGGINS
PUBLISHED: DISNEY * HYPERION
YEAR: 2015
AGES: 4-7
PAGES: 40
P1: Ill
P2: Title Page
P3: Acknowledgments & Copyright
ACT 1
P4:
Bruce was a bear who lived all by himself. He was a grump. PT
P5: He did not like sunny days. He did NOT like rain.
P6: He did not like cute little animals. PT
P7: Bruce only liked one thing - eggs! He collected them from all over the forest. “Good morning Mrs. Sparrow . . . “
(Goal: Get eggs)
An excellent and captivating intro. And a bear that behaves like a bear? In a Disney product? What?
P8: But Bruce didn’t eat eggs raw like other bears. Instead, he cooked them into fancy recipes that he found on the internet. PT
(Obstacle: Cooking eggs thus finding recipes)
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| author/ ill Ryan T. Higgins |
P9: One day Bruce came across a recipe for hard-boiled goose eggs drizzled with honey - salmon sauce. So we went out to get the ingredients.
(Disaster: Finds excellent recipe
Reaction: Desire
Decision: Goes shopping.)
ACT II.
(New Goal: Get all the ingredients to make the new recipe)
P10: First, he caught a few salmon.
Then he collected honey from a local beehive. He liked to support local business, you see.
Last, he went to Mrs. Goose’s nest to pay her a visit. “Are these eggs free-range organic?” PT
P11: At home, Bruce prepared the eggs for hard-boiling.
P12: But the fire in his stove fizzled. So he went out to get more wood. When Bruce came back, he was met with an unwelcome surprise. PT
(Obstacle: Oven not hot enough.)
P13: MAMA!
(Disaster: The main ingredient hatched!)
P14: Bruce became the victim of mistaken identity. PT
P15: Bruce wanted hard-boiled eggs. Not goslings.
(Reaction: Shock and Disappointment)
P16: He supposed he could settle for buttered goslings on toast… but for some reason, he lost his appetite. PT
(Dilemma: Eat or get rid of them?)
P17: Bruce scooped up the little geese and stomped back to their nest….
“I will have to ask Mrs. Goose about her return policy.
Only to find Mrs. Goose had flown south early.
“Be back in April, Mother Goose.
Poor traumatized Mama Goose. I still appreciate the bear being a bear, but I also sympathize with a mama loosing her whole nest moments before they are due to hatch.
(Decision: Get rid of them)
ACT II
(New Goal: Get rid of goslings.)
P18: Bruce left the goslings there anyway and went back home. PT
P19: But he was followed. “Mama?” “Mama?”
(Obstacle: Goslings have imprinted on him and won’t leave.)
P20: Bruce was very stern and said things like: “Go away” And “I’m not your mother!” And also “I liked you better when you were eggs!” PT
P21: Bruce could take I no longer and became EXTRA grumpy with them. “ROAR!”
P22: Ill
P23: “It didn’t work. Goslings always follow their mother even if she is a HE and HE is a bear. “Mama?”
P24: Ill
(Disaster: Nothing he does works. )
P25: Bruce was stuck with them.
(Reaction: Acceptance)
(Dillema: Make the best of it?)
P26: He tried to make the best of it.
P27: It was hard work.
P28: As the seasons passed Bruce watched the pesky goslings grow older
(Decision: So he tries to make the best of it until fall)
The pesky thing about a character like Bruce is that he is a passive character in his own story. The other character act on him to the point that it appears that he isn’t making choices. Really the implied choice int he adult mind would be for him to eat them. But this is a Disney story and no harm can come to these goslings. So without their mother out of the picture he has no choice but to tough it out.
Does anyone in the comments have any advice for writing a intriguing passive character? Do you have sympathy for Bruce at this point in the story?
ACT III
P29: Ill
P30: Then one fall afternoon he saw other goose families flying south. Finally, he’d be rid of those geese, and he could take a long winter nap.
(New Goal: Get the adult geese to fly away so he can hibernate.)
I find it interesting that after months of raising these goslings to adulthood he still hasn’t had that touching moment for him to want to keep them. Not in the story anyway, but his expression towards them do soften in the illustrations. In fact a lot of the pathos in this story comes across in the illustrations. Its a form of irony that only picture books can pull off.
P30: Bruce explained migration.
P31: But they didn’t listen.
(Obstacle: They don’t want to leave. And don’t know how to fly.)
P32: Bruce needed the geese to leave so he got creative.
P33 - 34: Nothing worked. The geese would not leave Bruce.
(Disaster: Nothing works
A lot of the humor is also in the illustrations. So this story, despite it’s wordiness does not work as well without the illustrations.
P35: sigh
(Reaction: Dismay)
(Dilemma: What to do?).
(Decision: Take them south himself!)
P35: So Bruce decided to pack some bags and take his geese into town.
P36: They boarded a bus . . .
P37: . . . And migrated to Miami.
P38: Now every winter Bruce and geese head south together. They laze about at the beach in tacky shirts, sipping ice-cold lemonade, while Bruce dreams of new recipes- recipes that don’t hatch!
P39: Mama?
P40: Ill
MY TAKE AWAY
It was hard to parcel out the scenes in this one but there are at least three! I think I nailed them - tell me what you think in the comments. The “dilemmas” are hard to pin down because Bruce’s motivation stays pretty consistent throughout. He wants to be rid of the goslings. His only dilemma is really “should I eat them or raise them?” A picture book won’t let Bruce eat or abandon baby birds so he doesn’t really have a choice about that. His only choices are what else can he do to make them “want” to leave.
As I mentioned all of the emotional shifts are shown through facial expressions and the things Bruce does with the goslings - not through the story itself. If all we had to go on were our imaginations and the words you could imagine that he just locked them in a cage for a few months and hoped for the best, instead of the gosling daycare he appears to have started in his home. Also much of the humor occurs in the background. Read over the skeleton again and then look at the pictures. You’ll probably laugh out loud at the differences. I sure did.
Some of the reviews I read reacted in shock and horror at the violence Bruce seems to be involved with at the beginning. First he harasses a sparrow for her eggs, then the mother goose. I, with my preference for dark humor and accuracy in telling stories about nature, approved of it! Bruce is a bear! Bears are omnivorous. Folks forget that bears are actually dangerous because we portray them in books and movies as cuddly and kind. I liked Bruce right away for being casually aggressive over eggs. It’s as though Ryan T. Higgins, the writer, thought about creating a bear that was the perfect opposite of Winnie the Pooh. And Disney seems to have approved too because The Mouse bought the whole series.
As an author/illustrator Higgins is able to do a lot on one page. Much of the movement and conversation happened on multiple panels like a graphic novel. Definitely an excellent book for illustration study. Though it made it kind of difficult to do the breakdown. For a moment I thought I’d messed up the page numbers and had to go back and record the “page turns” to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
I was charmed by Bruce and his grumpiness. Since I’m working on a series myself I’ll read and privately breakdown the next three “Mother Bruce Books”. However, I will only publish this one - the flagship book. I want to study a few successful series books. So next will be my “Comp Books” or comparison books that are most like my Jasmine Smalls Detective series. Then I’ll take a little break from working on this blog to see about polishing my own work with what I’ve learned here, as well as working on my queries and such.
BUT FIRST!!! The Bedroom Breakdown.
This is where I go to read this lovely story to my little girl and see if the experience changes my prospective. I already like this book so it’ll be interesting to see what she has to say about it.
THE BEDTIME BREAKDOWN!
To my surprise my daughter reacted strongly to the casual violence I mentioned earlier. She frowned and cried about the bear taking the eggs from the Sparrow and the Mother Goose. She was also upset that he would try to eat the goslings anyway.
Of course I knew that he wouldn’t, and was a amused that they actually entertained the idea because it’s how a bear would act. But my daughter is new to story and this is her first bear to act like a real predator.
While my husband and I got a lot of entertainment out of the visual humor of the story, there was a lot I had to explain to my daughter, or just say “you’ll get it when you’re older”.
That does not make this a bad book at all. It was a teaching tool. We told her bears eat anything and are not friendly little cuddle muffins. But it took a few more pages of reading for her to warm up to him again - around where he and the goslings are painting is where her smile came back.
I’ve rented the whole series from the library and there are a few books meant for younger readers: “1 Grumpy Bruce” and “Peeka-Bruce” are both board books that she enjoyed with non of the violence that upset her. For slightly older kids who are ready for stories there is “Bruce’s Big Fun Day”, “Spring Stinks” and “Thanks for Nothing!” All three of which my daughter enjoyed. Though Bruce stays in character as a grumpy boy for the remainder of the series, he doesn’t get “violent” again in any of the other books. I still appreciate the tension of knowing that Bruce is a bear who behaves like a bear. His neighbors must know when he’s full and satisfied before they come around bugging him.
We’ll have to wait a couple of years and try “Mother Bruce” again but I’m sure older kids who understand irony will get a kick out of it.
This concludes my breakdown. If you like this book and want to support the author/illustrator Ryan T. Higgins please check it out or make a purchase from your local library.
To learn more about Ryan T. Higgins check this out!
And to learn more about me check out this one.
If you like these breakdowns I’d appreciate a comment down below, thank you for coming to hang out with me.
I’ll see you on the next page!