Remember how Shakespeare was known for taking someone’s meh ur-text and turning it into a canonical piece of Western literature? That’s kinda the feat that Bear pulls off in Dev Petty and Brandon Todd‘s charming THE BEAR MUST GO ON.

Rabbit, Squirrel, and Other Squirrel (brilliant) dream of putting on a big show to wow their forest friends, but Bear blissfully demurs and sticks to the sidelines, jotting notes and creating art–a little ditty he sings to himself. While his pals frenzy themselves in a quest to create all the accoutrements for a real crowd-pleasing event, they, uh, forget to create the show.

You can guess what’s coming. Dev Petty’s dialogue is so snappy, and Brandon Todd’s illustrations have such a bumptious woodland-carnival-meets-Broadway vibe that the stakes get painfully high before Bear saves the day.

Ultimately, this is a classic find-your-voice book, but I also love the way Bear has his cake and eats it, too. While everyone else is mucking around in the nuts, Bear is doing what matters–creating the thing.

Kids are too little to relate, but of course PBs are an all-ages show. And you never really know what’s sinking in. So three cheers for Bear: how nice to abstain from the planning committees, the decisions on catering, the dress-code elaboration. One voice never sounded sweeter.