Lars can make friends anywhere. His new friend is Sasha the tiger who just wants to see the ocean. But as usual for Lars he got a little lost. But new friends along the way will help Sasha find home and Lars make it back to his dad. Love these books! I love the heart. I love the sentiment. I love the illustration. They just work. ( )

Lars, the eponymous little polar bear, returns in this fifth picture-book devoted to his ongoing adventures, this time making a new friend in the form of a lost Siberian tiger named Sasha. On a quest to see the sea, of which his father had told him, Sasha finds himself far from home, and unsure of how to get back. Lars, nothing daunted, helps him to get home, and then is escorted home in his turn by Sasha and his father. In the end, he concludes that the sea, which he had previously found boring, must be pretty amazing, to draw animals from so far away...

Originally published in Switzerland as Kleiner Eisbär, kennst du den Weg?, (literally: "Little Polar Bear, Do You Know the Way?"), this entry in author/illustrator Hans de Beer's series offers a sweet inversion of the usual formula for these stories, in which Lars is swept off by circumstance, finding himself far from home, before being aided by other animals in returning. In Little Polar Bear, Take Me Home! that scenario is inverted, and it is Lars who must help another creature return to his home. Like its predecessors, the story here is gentle and heartwarming, and the artwork (done in watercolor, I believe) cute and appealing. Recommended to fans of the Little Polar Bear series, and to anyone looking for stories about polar bears and/or tigers. ( )

A PreSchool-Grade 2 storybook. -- Boredom drives little polar bear, Lars, to scrounge in the dump behind the polar research station in search of a tasty snack. He spreads out these morsels beside a railroad car to devour them in peace, but they immediately disappear. A quick peek into the boxcar reveals the thief. Poor Sasha, a Siberian tiger cub who had been on a journey to see the ocean, is lost, very hungry, and terribly homesick. Lars listens to his tale of woe, having learned through his own adventures that everyone can use a helping hand now and then. Sasha's desire to see the ocean puzzles Lar, though, because it bores him so. He helps Sasha get back home, traveling a great distance by train, on foot, and camelback before the cub's nose tells him they're in Siberia, where his parents greet them. Father Tiger sees it as his duty to return the favor and return Lars home safely, taking his son with him so he can see the ocean at last.