Customer Reviews

The Big Honey Hunt, 40th Anniversary Edition (The Berenstain Bears)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Berenstain Bears are my secret weapon in my constant battle to instill good habits in my kids. My kids may not listen to me nagging them to clean up their rooms, but they will listen to Mama Bear. Since there's a Berenstain Bear book that covers just about any problem that crops up in our house, we know Mama, Papa, Brother and Sister Bear almost as well as we know our next door neighbors (and they're related to us!).

If you only know the Bear family though some of their more recent books, you might be surprised to learn that the first few Berenstain Bears books aren't about problem-solving at all. Instead, they are rhyming books about life in what later came to be know as "the tree house down a sunny dirt road in Bear Country."

In the very first book, an empty honey pot sends Papa Bear and Small Bear (later to be known as Brother Bear) on a quest for some honey. Mama tells them to get it at the honey store, conveniently located just outside the front door. Papa Bear, however, has grander plans.

"Not at the store. Oh, no, Small Bear. If a bear is smart, If a bear knows how, He goes on a honey hunt. Watch me now!" If you've read any of the Bears' adventures, you'll know that of course Papa's grand plans backfire. He and Small Bear end up hiding in a pond to escape a swarm of angry bees. On the last page, Mama watches with a knowing smile as Papa buys honey from the store.

There's one person in my family who cringes every time a new Bear book shows up on the night's list of requested reading. My husband doesn't like to see Papa always portrayed as a buffoon. Sometimes, just to make my husband feel better, I'll let Papa be the sensible one and Mama be the comic relief.

This story is a fun adventure with lots of expressive illustrations and easy-to-read words. With 61 pages, a child really feels like he's accomplished something when he finishes this book.

Small Bear and Dad Bear go in search of honey. Mother tells them to go to the honey store, but Dad Bear has a better idea. They go in search of a honey tree. One mishap after another, they finally find their honey - only, where a bear finds honey, he also finds BEES.

Dad is clever, though, and they manage to escape unscathed... and they come home with honey, too!

A fun book, and great for beginning readers.

The Berenstains should be remembered for their beginning reader books of the sixties and early seventies. Back then, the drawing style was more free, the stories were simple but clever, and the bears were a memorably comic tour de force. (In latter years they became cranked-out and preachy, and dealt with all sorts of issues in longer picture books and novels. Bah.) What child has ever completely forgotten the impages of their early adventures? In this, their first book, we meet Papa Bear, the bluff but incompetent teacher, and his son, the woshipful pupil who is actually smarter than the teacher. Off they go with a bucket to get some real honey from bees, eschewing the store next to their house. A series of comic misadventures ensure, climaxing with the bears being chased by a swarm of bees and hiding underwater. They return home to buy honey the easy way, as Mama told them to do in the first place. Funny, concise, and still fun after all these years - such are the early Berenstain Bears.

This is a fun book with some excellent learning points to it, but I think it has lost some of its magic with time, and certainly the later Bear books are much more popular with my two girls.

This, I think was the first of the Berenstain Bear books, Papa bear gets sent off with his son to buy some honey - but of course a smart bear doesn't buy it from the store, a bear finds his own honey.

The search takes Papa and his son through all kinds of adventures, as Papa bear teaches his son how to find honey - looks like, tastes like, feels like, smells like and so on. Like I said, these are nice learning points.

Anyway, a nice read but not one of the favourite kids books - the Circus of C and Bike Lesson are much more fun Kids books in the Berenstain range.

This is one of the earlier Berenstain Bear books, and it shows. Despite the cover, the bears on the *inside* of this book are less stylized and cutesy than the bears in the newer books. Also, the book is more of an early reader, it rhymes and is nowhere near as wordy as the newer, $4 books. (Tell the truth, I like all these older Berenstains better!)

The little bear and his dad go out to get honey, but of course they eschew the honey store *right next to their house* and go on, surprise, a honey hunt.

You can already tell that this Will Not End Well. After a series of predictable mishaps, they end up (predictably) buying honey at the store after all, much to the delight of the little ones.

This one is a *little* long for toddlers. Save it for the older pre-readers, or the ones learning to read.

My 2-year-old loves seeing Papa Bear get into trouble. We already had the Bear's Christmas, the Bear's Vacation and the Bear's Picnic, and she loves those too. The punch line, where Papa decides the best honey comes from the store he passed in the beginning, is lost on her but she looks forward to all the animals coming out of all the non-honey-trees to attack poor Papa.

This was one of my favorite books as a child. By the time my nephew was 1 yrs old he could do the "BZZZZ" part without being cued. Now, I've been reading it to my son, and he's beginning to read it back to me. There's just something very "comforting" about this book. I'm finally breaking down to buy a second copy, as my orignal copy is in many pieces and don't think it will survive long enough for our 2nd child to enjoy it.

This book is another that was a favorite of mine as a child and that my son (2 yrs.) loves. We read "honey" every night. He likes to point out the bee on every page. The story of Dad showing his son how to find honey is a cute one.

"The Big Honey Hunt" deserves its enduring status as a classic: a father-son outing with humorous misadventures; loose rhyming structure; map-like graphics easily understood by children; and obvious family affection. The "message" is understated and the story is good fun for all.

This was my husbands favorite book as a child so we bought for our daughter was in wonderful shape and she loves it!