We're Going on a Bear Hunt

You know, I think this is the first book I bought for Eddie new. He was just gone one at the time, and believe me, he had no shortage of books. Some were presents, the rest were picked up at assorted car boot sales and sales of work and such. But this one appealed to me because of the title, which was of the loud and raucous old campfire call-and-response poem we’d chanted in scouts, and the illustrations, which are gorgeous.

The story has four children and their Dad heading off on the titular bear hunt, steadily marching through the assorted obstacles which confront them (grass, river, mud, wood) with attendant sound effects. There’s a chorus repeated, a description of the obstacle and then the noisy march, all to be chanted show more rhythmically until finally the bear is found and the family flee back through each obstacle until they get safely back under the covers of their bed and the bear goes back to his cave.

I’ve heard more than one parent complain about Going On A Bear Hunt. ‘Oh yeah it’s great,’ they say, ‘Until you’ve done it about a hundred times.’ And, well, yes, it’s the sort of thing that can get old fast for a grown-up while remaining a perpetual favourite of the child. At first the repetitive nature of the words are mitigated by the beautiful illustrations, full of charm and personality, but even that’s got to pale for after a while.

Eddie and I certainly read Bear Hunt A LOT, and we did so loudly and quickly, especially at the end when the pace can get quite breathless. Casual visitors were often startled by the energy we put into it, but that’s what made it fun. I never really got sick of it, though, because it was never Eddie’s only book, though for a long time it was his favourite, so if you really didn’t want to read it to him, there were always plenty of others to choose from.

He’s two and a half now, and almost never asks for it, though he’ll take it if it’s offered. Lately he’s become a bit more ambivalent about the role of the bear. Now he has a slightly better grasp of stories and how they work, the realisation has dawned that the bear is the villain of the piece, and I don’t think he entirely approves. Between Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Jill Murphy’s Peace At Last and a few others, including Bear in the Big Blue House, bears, as far as he’s concerned, are the good guys. Certainly, when he gets to the last wordless double page spread of the bear trudging along the moonlit beach to his cave, head bowed, all alone, his sympathy is definitely with the bear.

‘Poor bear,’ he said when I read it to him today. ‘He lost his dinner.’ show less

There are two reasons why I like this book. The first reason I like this book is because of the illustrations. I love how the illustrator switched between colored illustrations and black and white illustrations on every page. The black and white illustration pages include the most text, then the next page is the colored illustrations that include sound effects or the action the characters are doing. For example, when the characters have to walk through the grass the text on the page is “Swishy swashy! Swishy swashy!” I think alternating the colors of the illustrations makes the book more engaging for the reader. It also allows the reader to focus specifically on the text when they are reading the black and white illustration pages. show more The second reason I like this book is the repetitive language. The characters in the story are going on a bear hunt and there are all these areas they have to go through in order to make it to the bear cave. Each new place begins with the phrase “We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a bug one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.” Using this text repetitively makes the story more memorable. I think the main purpose of this book is for pure enjoyment. I think it is just to tell a fun story about a family that is going on a bear hunt. The sound effects incorporated into the text makes it more engaging for the reader. The book can be used in the classroom and the students can act out the different parts of the story. show less

In Were going on a bear hunt the main theme of the book is overcoming obstacles, facing your fears, but knowing when to retreat for safety. I chose this book because it was very memorable from my childhood, because I was in fact scared to death of the book. The last picture of the bear walking away lonely scared me as a kid, but I could never figure out why. I realize now the overwhelming sense of loneliness in that picture made me sad as a child. Oxenbury's use of onomatopoeia's is very descriptive in what is happening in the book, and I think adds a lot of character to it as well. A lot of these specific ones are rare, and I think are very effective for teaching children of all the different options and sounds that things can make. I show more personally resonate with this book because the whole book they are looking for a bear and want to conquer their fears, but in the end, they retreat back to under the covers. I feel that is very relatable to me because I try to conquer my fears, but a lot of times end up retreating show less

This book is a fun family or classroom story to read along with children. It's great for shared reading or used in any other way. It teaches creativity and how to make a situation fun for everyone. The story is great for shared reading as it is repetitive but also tells a story about a family getting outside and creating fun together. I love this book as it can be a great story to tell and allow the kids to get up and move around while reading it.

A favorite for all three of our kids (our family hardback has finally pretty much fallen apart), this book offers multiple layers of contrast: repeated phrases vs. new content, easy vocabulary vs. fun nonsense sounds, mock-scary vs. cozy/comfortable, and black-and-white vs. color illustrations. Not to mention an opportunity for an over-the-top, frenetic reading of the last few pages.

Illustrated with an intact, happy family who do things together. Their movements and closeness is beautifully portrayed. There is a a father with four children and a dog. All seem happy to be together, and are enjoying their outdoor adventure. Every other page states "We're going on a bear hunt.
We're going to catch a big one.
What a beautiful day!
We're not scared."

The overriding theme is that during their journey, they come upon instances that must be dealt with by simply doing what is required. They must go through the journey to reach the other side, not up, down, over, or around, but through.

They come upon long, wavy grass
They can't go over it.
They can't go under it
Oh, No!
They have to go through it.

Again with each challenge of a deep, show more cold river, a muddy path, a big, dark forest, a snowstorm,
and a narrow gloomy cave where they do indeed find a big bear!

They quickly redo all the things that had to do to find the bear in order to get home.

I very much enjoyed the theme of this book of a father with children teaching them that in all quests, you must go through it to get to the other side. show less

I've been trying to review this book for a while, but the inspiration just wasn't coming to me, probably because I'm still of two minds. Let me first explain that I came to this book with no preconceptions, being non english speaking (although my son is) and thus as it happens totally unfamiliar with this so familiar children's song. The material feels familiar though, you're going on a quest, traverse some obstacles, then retrace your steps. The retracing part made me think of a couple of older books we recently read: [b:Bears in the Night|900067|Bears in the Night|Stan Berenstain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320476720s/900067.jpg|3143550] and [b:The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree|900068|The Berenstain Bears show more and the Spooky Old Tree|Stan Berenstain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320553758s/900068.jpg|1445041] and the adventure part made me think of [b:We Were Tired of Living in a House|1431464|We Were Tired of Living in a House|Liesel Moak Skorpen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1183535357s/1431464.jpg|2406305]. Both of these elements are sure to delight the toddler/preschooler. My 3 1/2 year old really liked the "swishy swashy", "squelch squerch" and "splish splosh" sounds of going through the obstacles, but I noticed that he was beginning to have second thoughts about this whole adventure thing as more and more things felt weird (wading up to your neck in an icy river, pushing barefoot through a snowstorm in a skimpy summer dress). And this was way before they found themselves eye to eye with a big scary bear. The thing is, this is a fantastical, silly tale but the magnificent illustrations make it look so very real. So, if coming face to face with a bear scared the crap out of my son, what followed was just way too much for him to handle. And no wonder, it really was for me to. Not only the bear takes off after the children, it follows them all the way to their house, up to their door step. Only in the nick of time do they manage to close the door on him, as if that were to provide them a feeling of safety. (Once you've seen what bears do to car doors, when they're onto some food, closing a door on that monster is not going to give you much peace of mind.) It's supposed to be humorous, of course, but for my son, the humor didn't seep through, to him this family was nuts! In short, once that book was read, my kid just wanted it out of sight and there was no way he could be talked into giving it a second read.


As for myself, I was completely enthralled by the water color illustrations, which are beautiful, I had picked the book up at a book store a while back and contemplated getting it as a birthday present. And it sure would be a fine one, just make sure the child in question is not going to be sensitive to the frightening aspects of the story, i.e. the bear on the doorstep. For us, it was too much, probably because the illustrations made everything feel so realistic. The similar books that I mentioned here above worked for my son, despite them containing the same elements, because in the case of the Berenstain Bears we were dealing with anthropomorphic animals already (which sort of takes the "real" out of it) and in the case of children in Tired of Living in a House, it was quite clear that their adventure was just play and they never really ventured that far from their house in the first place. Maybe the right age for the book is either the infant/toddler who does not grasp how the children in the story are put in harm's way, or the slightly older first grader who will be able to abstract the danger.

The realistic illustrations really make this book though, much more than the "rhyme" (which is strictly not a rhyme, nor is it alliterated). Reading it I had a hard time finding the right rhythm, probably because it didn't have a natural flow, and I'd never heard a performance of this well known song. show less