My Top 5 Children's Reads - Number 2

We're Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. 

This book is the ultimate chant-along book to read with toddlers and young children. It's rhythm is predictable, it's illustrations are captivating, and like all good stories, it has a climax which thrills the little ones to the core (in a good way!). 

We're Going On A Bear Hunt, an adaptation of an old american folk song, was first read aloud by Michael Rosen in a primary school in the late 80's. It was so successful that he teamed up with illustrator, Helen Oxenbury, and it was published by Walker Books in 1989. 

The first thing that struck me was the illustrations on the first two pages. You don't often find a children's picture book with such striking illustrations. They are painted in watercolour and alternate between black and white and full colour on each page. The black and white pages give the rhyme, "We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, etc etc" and the colour pages give the sound, "Swishy swashy! Swishy swashy! Swishy swashy!". 

The group of people in the illustrations look like a family, but after some research of interviews with Helen Oxenbury, she has actually confirmed that it's a group of children, she modelled them on her own. The way they are drawn really conveys the emotion each individual is feeling. At the beginning of the book for example, each member of the group is excited, waving their hands around with smiles on their faces at the idea of their upcoming adventure. One by one, starting with the eldest member of the party, each one gets more downtrodden as the 'adventure' is getting more and more tiresome. By the time they reach the cave towards the end of the book, their faces and posture show caution and trepidation. My favourite illustration in the whole book is on the very last page which shows the bear, shoulders down, sadly walking back to his cave. To me it seems like the bear just wanted to be their friend, but they ran away from him, scared. 

Once you've read this book once, you will know the rhyme by heart. It's so simple, and that's what makes it great for young readers, because they will remember it too. Within minutes of starting to read this book, my daughter and I were chanting along together, really getting into the rhythm and the beat. The sing-song way in which the story is written is captivating for young children. The actual story is also very inspiring for them; the defiant 'we're not scared' at the end of each verse, urging them to carry on through their adventure; the idea that no matter what obstacle is put in front of them, they can come up with a solution each and every time, 'we can't go over it, we can't go under it, oh no, we've got to go through it'. And every child loves getting messy! 

The first time Michael Rosen recited this old folk song, he didn't add the sounds, and he felt like something was missing. He felt the need to pad it out, and choosing to add the sound of the obstacles was a genius move. Making the sounds of the water, 'Splash, splosh', the grass, 'Swishy, swashy', and the mud, 'Squelch, Squirch', turn it into a sensory experience for the reader. It transports the children so that they're there, IN the story. 

The climax of the story is of course when the group reach the cave, they creep inside and come face to face with the very Bear they've been hunting all along! At this point in the first read, my daughter did a gigantic gasp, she was so caught up in the rhyme that she'd forgotten they were on a bear hunt. They run back to their home, going back through all the obstacles (sounds) they came through on the way there, but this time quicker and more urgently than before. They reach their house and hide under the covers, never to go on a bear hunt again. 

The ending makes me smile. Of course, they didn't really find a bear on their bear hunt, but it shows the imagination of the children, how caught up in their adventure they were, and how home really is where all the comfort lies.