This book started as a sequel to Magic Thinks Big, my book about a cat who sits motionless in a doorway. I wanted to write about him not moving again, as he imagined himself on a migration with some geese. The idea didn’t work. But there was one image in my dummy I liked: a furry mammal in a V of flying geese. I kept reworking the story — out with the cat, in with a bear, out with the sea turtles, in with a moose — but this image stayed. This book is about a bear cub who doesn’t want to hibernate (or a child who doesn’t want to sleep). His friends play outside, but he can’t. I remember the same feeling of unfairness when I was young, throwing a ball outside and being told to come in to dinner.
