Customer Reviews

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (Brown Bear and Friends)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fun interactive book about the animals in the zoo and the sounds they make. It's a great vocabulary builder, since it uses words that small kids may not hear every day. The book is quite enjoyable for kids who like animals, and not at all scary. The story may get kids wound up, however, so it might not be the best choice for a bedtime story. The book has about 200 words.

What I had expected in this book was the onomatopoeia ("buzz", "meow", etc.) that is usual to other books about animal noises.

Although this book used some familiar terms, many of the terms for animal sounds were confusing to my daughter. For example, I had a difficult time explaining what "fluting" might sound like, since I really don't know what a flamingo sounds like (I live in the frozen Midwest). It's also hard to explain "trumpeting" to someone who doesn't know or understand what a trumpet is.

The text flows beautifully, the repetition is soothing to little ears and Eric Carle's illustrations are always a treat. Despite this, I can't recommend this book as highly as some other reviewers have.

I know that my disappointment stems from the fact that I had planned to use this book to explain the sounds that some exotic animals make. I really don't need this book just for the repetition and poetry, I think that the "Brown Bear..." book by the same team does a better job at that task.

Small children (18 mos-4yrs) will enjoy mimicking the animal sounds and following along with the melody of this tale. The repetition of the story, as with many of Mr. Carle's books, helps my 2-yr old child participate and enjoy the reading experience to the fullest. These are his favorite books.

Okay, so you might not be able to make the sounds of the animals (what does a walrus and flamingo really sound like anyway?) but the words they use in this book really help out. With words like "snarling" or "hissing" or "yelping" or trumpeting", it's easy to change your voice and use your body and face to "become" the appropriate animal when you read those words. My 2-year old daughter listened carefully when I read the book for the first time, then took the book and "read" it back to me. Well, she only got the "(animal name), (animal name), what do you see?" as she paged through the book but it only took a few more days before she pretty much memorized all the lines. This only happens with a few books (like The Napping House or Clothesline) so I was pretty surprised. I think it's great for kids to learn other animal names, like peacock and hippopatamus, and other words like for the sounds they make. It gets tiring to always read about puppies and kittens or farm and jungle animals.

My 15-month old son whose favorite book has been Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You see? has found a new favorite in Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You hear? He shrieks with delight as he hears us make the animal sounds and sees the colorful illustration, Mr. Carle is so well known for. My question is, What next? When can we expect the next in series of wonderful tales of animals living in perfect harmony, accompanied by the beautiful illustrations??

This companion book to Carle's "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" is another winner. Rather than focusing on the visual, it focuses on the auditory: "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? I hear a lion, roaring in my ear; lion, lion, what do you hear..." The illustrations are big and captivating and the phrasing hard to beat for young children learning how to read. Along with Brown Bear, my 3 ½ year old memorized this book after just a few readings and now reads it aloud to anyone who will listen. My only very tiny complaint is the choice of words in two cases: does a peacock really "yelp" or does a flamingo really "flute." Not sure about that. In any case, this is a classic.

Your two and a half year old can read this book by him/herself after you read it with them a few times! It is my daughter's favorite just like the Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? book by the same author. The kids like to peep at the next page and see which animal it next and then read it. They learn a lot of new words from this book such as hissing, braying, bellowing, etc. And the most impressive thing is my daughter has learnt how to pronounce certain hard words from this author's books and she does just fine. At her age, she can actually say "boa constrictor" (one of the animals in the book) very clearly and with such innocence she reads the third last page as follows: "zoo peeker, zoo peeker, what do you hear? instead of zookeeper zookeeper! Thank you Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle, for creating this book. I have had this book for months and my daughters still love it. It is nothing but the BEST !!!!

Given how much my 18-month-old loves "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See" I thought this also would be a great read-aloud book. Wrong! Even though the whole focus of the book is animals making sounds, a large proportion are basically impossible for a human being to imitate: e.g., Hippopotamus, Flamingo, Peacock, Elephant or Walrus. It's a lot easier to just add sound effects to the animals in Brown Bear, almost all of which can be easily imitated.

I bought this book for my 20-month-old daughter a few days ago because she was ready for some new books and really liked Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Well, we've read it about 15 times each day since then. She even took it to bed with her. The pictures are beautiful and it introduces some new animals that we haven't normally talked about. I would definitely recommend it.

This is a great book with sturdy pages (important for infants - especially teething infants) and beautiful, vibrant colors. The relation between text and illustration is perfect for a toddler learning about animals. My 2 year old loves to make the animal sounds as he turns the pages.