Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?

I really liked this book because it doesn’t use basic animals, it uses endangered species. I would use this with older kids even though it is a basic reading level books but it uses animals that the kids don’t talk about every day like a brown bear so I would use it in science and then go to talk about endangered species and how we can save them.

Various endangered animals answer the question "What do you see?" and the answers are what animal they see. The text is in rhyme. The list of animals includes a panda bear, a bald eagle, a water buffalo, a spider monkey, a green sea turtle, a macaroni penguin, a sea lion, a red wolf, a whooping crane and a black panther. The last iteration is a dreaming child who sees all the animals "wild and free". ( )

This book utilizes a repetitive pattern of various wild animals being asked, "what do you see?" and they would respond with the name of a different animal. This pattern continues until an animal states that it sees a "dreaming child." The book concludes by restating each animal that was included previously. To accompany the story, bold, graphic illustrations of the animals draw in readers' attention as the story progresses.

If there is a central message in this book, I would argue that it is that anything is possible within your dreams. It is implied within this book that the animals are not speaking, but being dreamed of by the "dreaming child." However, there may not be a central message in this book. It is possible that this book was simply created using a repetitive pattern of text for very young children to be able to remember and recite the words of the story without having to actually read. ( )

a fun book about a panda bear and all that he can see
1 large book