Name: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?
ISBN: 9780141334813

Eric Carle

Bill Jr Martin

A sequel to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Bill Martin's playful story combining animals, colours and sounds, is beautifully illustrated by Eric Carle. A simple rhymthic text introduces the reader to a menagerie of wild animals from a roaring lion to a fluting flamingo and a trumpeting elephant. With refreshed colour artwork, this paperback reissue celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the second title in the series, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Bill Martin

Sarah Sammis

A big part of Brown Bear's charm is its surreal combining of animals and colors and the almost Remy Charlip conclusion. By changing colors for sounds the book loses one important visual element. Yes, the book still has Eric Carle's delightful style of illustrations but this time they are too grounded in reality.

A second problem with Polar Bear is the meter. Martin seems to be trying to keep the original sing-song meter of Brown Bear but his choice of animals and sounds gives him much longer words and often times too many syllables to fit into the simplistic meter of Brown Bear thus making Polar Bear hard to read out loud and frustrating to listen to (according to my children).

If you are a fan of Eric Carle's artwork or fans of Bill Martin Jr.'s books, then Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? will be a welcome to your personal library. For everyone else there are better board books.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Reviews

Highlights