In 2009’s When Wishes Come True, Little Bear yearned to be anything other than a polar bear cub living on barren, white stretches of Arctic ice with Mother Bear. He soon learned, however, that he was lucky to be who and where he was. (Some might argue that Little Bear didn’t really have a choice in the matter, but never mind that.)

The mother and cub return in Together Forever, in which Little Bear is once again reminded that he should stay where he belongs: in this case, right next to his mum. Little Bear likes to go “rolling and tumbling in the snow,” but Mother Bear cautions him not to venture out of sight, telling him that should he ever get lost, he must sit and watch the Great Bear and Little Bear stars until she finds him. Naturally, during the very next snowstorm, the cub wanders off and gets lost. (There is a great, wordless, heartbreaking spread showing Little Bear’s dawning realization of his predicament.) He remembers his mother’s words, and watches the stars until mother and cub are reunited.

Per-Henrik Gürth’s simple tale is inarguably touching. The soft watercolour visual style he employs is in sharp contrast to the brighter, more cartoony look of many of his other books, but it is effective, with everything bathed in blues and whites and the odd dash of yellow. He makes the Arctic seem a paradoxically warm and inviting place. If the prose is just a pinch too wordy in places, it does not distract from Gürth’s swirling, full-page scenes of snow, ice, and Northern Lights.

As with the previous book, the underlying message here is all about comfort, which plays well to very young readers’ insecurities, though slightly older kids just starting to discover the wider, wilder world might find the emphasis on staying put a little stifling. Next time, it’d be nice to see Little Bear bust loose a bit – and for Mother Bear to bite her tongue and just let him.