Martin, Bill. "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" Illus. Eric Carle. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991.
“Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” is an imaginative book for anyone who has every pretended to be an animal. If you liked “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” then you are sure to enjoy this extension of Eric Carle’s colorful and unique illustrations in this book. He uses the same style of illustrating in which he makes his artwork not with pencils, or crayons, but with scraps of paper cut and pieced together in clever manner.
Bill Martin tells a simple story that reads quickly as a result of the rhythm he creates through the text. The story is set in a zoo, and the animals, children and zookeeper are the characters in the text. Each animal has a voice that leads into the next with a clever rhyme about what they hear. The zookeeper completes the story with all of the sounds he hears from the children in the zoo. It will really spark the imaginations of people who take the time to not only look at the distinctive pictures, but to think about the sounds that are being described by a single word.
The main audience of this picture book is young children, since it is a very simple and concise book. It can be read on their own or with a teacher or parent.
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2 comments:
This was one of my favorite books as a child. I remember it being one of the first books that I could read on my own. I liked how you talked about the imagination of the reader being sparked because after reading I can remember always wanting to pretend that I was an animal. Now I have second cousins and they are the same way after reading this book. They give everyone an animal from the book to act out and they want to play zoo. It's awesome to see how children are still enjoying this book.
Eric Carle has such a distinct style. I knew a teacher who had students paint construction paper, cut out shapes to create their own animals, and then make color photocopies of the designs to create books. It helped them think about the process of writing/illustrating books and they had greater appreciation for Carle's work!
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