Book Review: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
I see one - no, two! - books looking at me.
Contents
Who are Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle?
Bill Martin Jr. is an educator, children’s author and publishing executive with over 300 children’s book under his authorship! Some of his most famous books all include animals, such as Chika Chika Boom Boom and this book. His writing style is inspired by poetry, utilising rhythm and repetition to instill interest in children. Bill recognises the importance of a child’s first reading experiences. He believes that children should learn to appreciate language before they start learning to read. So he concentrates on creating books that will give children the exhilaration and pride of reading the whole thing, even if it only has a few vocabulary.
Eric Carle is the illustrator of this book and has been illustrating children’s books since 1963 (almost 60 years!). His books are praised to be intuitive and innovative little stories with his instantly recognisable collage art style.
Reading with children
I’ll say right off the bat that we have two different versions of this book. One is hardback and the other is a board book. The board book is monolingual, with only Simplified Chinese, while the hardback that we’re selling is bilingual, with English and Simplified Chinese on the same page.
This book is undoubtedly engaging. Of course, it delivers the reading experience provided by Eric Carle and also does well with the question-and-answer style like many other books. We’ve covered a few before, such as Eric Carle’s Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? and Who’s Behind Me? Series.
Particularly like the hint at the end… people come in all colours!
It always begins “___, ___, what do you see?” and the animal will answer “I see a ___ looking at me!” It has quite an endearing finish, where the book breaks the fourth wall (for want another phrase) and pulls the reader into the chain.
The blanks are always filled in with a colour and an animal. As shown below, examples include:
This is also global Luka Compatible which works really well for busy parents or for non-native speakers who need a little help with pronunciation!
Tips, artwork, and engagement
The question-and-answer style along with the rhythm and repetition introduces reading and increases confidence in reading with younger children because it follows a simple pattern. (Particularly when the structure of the sentence is the same throughout!) This way, kids learn to pick up the language more quickly because there are only a few factors (in this case it’s only colour and an animal) that change. Encourage them to ask the question while you answer, or vice versa, and eventually they’ll be reading the whole book themselves.
We’ve also got collage art again with Eric Carle - this is something he uses with all of his books. It looks lovely and we particularly love the bright colours. For a book where learning colours is one of the focal points, the colours in this are fantastically vibrant.
If you’re looking for other ways to use the book, we’d recommend using colour flashcards (with the Chinese characters) or play dough when you’re reading this. You could also use other things like crayons, paints etc. You can lay out a load of flashcards and ask them to match the flashcard with each page. Or you can have open-ended play with play dough or use it in a similar way to the flashcards!
Other thoughts
I’ll note here that the colours reproduced in the hardback are ever so slightly less saturated compared to the board book.
It’s important to note that the contents of the hardback and the board book edition that we sell are different… The hardback is bilingual and it has English and Simplified Chinese text side-by-side. For families that are opting for the bilingual environment, or maybe someone can’t read Chinese, this will fit right in. This is around A4 size, the cover is matte and the pages have a gloss finish.
If you already have the English version at home, you may just prefer the board book which is monolingual, with only Simplified Chinese text. The cover and pages have a gloss finish. It should be noted that the board book is considerably smaller, but arguably more durable. We’d recommend this for babies and toddlers in particular… it’ll definitely stand the test of time despite the chewing, drooling and baby treatment!
I’ll also mention here that some of the animals might seem a little outlandish. You’ll have things like green horses and purple chickens. If you’re worried about presenting as much realism through books as possible, then you can still supplement the reading with flashcards, photographs or animal figurines.
Conclusion
This book delivers the joy of poetry-inspired rhythm and repetition by Bill Martin Jr. with the classic Eric Carle visual experience. It’s an enjoyable read for both parents and children and this would work very well in classrooms, too. Learning the colours and animals in Chinese becomes a pleasant experience and it’s nice to have the option to choose between hardback and board book, big and small, bilingual and monolingual!
Hope this helps you with deciding on what books you think will be most beneficial in your home or school library! Do you have any activities that you do while reading or after reading this book? There are loads of possibilities, we’d love to hear from you!
If you’re interested in buying this book in the UK or EU, you can find it here. You can also find out more about the global Luka (Chinese-English version) here. If you’re going to purchase anything, use DEZIREMI20OFF to get S$20 off your order with lukareads.com! At the moment, the EU Luka doesn’t read this yet, but you can make your own self-recordings of it.
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