Bonny Becker's latest Mouse and Bear book, The Sniffles for Bear (Candlewick, 2011), had me laughing the other day.
The very first page clues in the careful reader to the conflict:
Bear was sick, very, very sick.
His eyes were red. His snout was red.
His throat was sore and gruffly.
In fact, Bear was quite sure no one
had ever been as sick as he.
So the problem isn't that Bear is sick, it's that Bear is just a wee bit over-dramatic about it. The sly humor throughout will have kids and adults laughing and comparing Bear to people they know. Bear's expression as Mouse tries to "help" him up the stairs is priceless (illustrations by Kady MacDonald Denton). And I think the time for this book is right this second, since at least 70% of the world seems to have a cold or allergies right now.