Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?: Classic Board Book (Brown Bear and Friends)

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? is a classic children’s book and makes a great gift for toddlers and preschoolers. The repetitive, rhythmic text is engaging and easy for little ones to follow, and it helps build early listening and prediction skills. The animal sounds are fun to read aloud, and my child enjoys chiming in with the noises. The illustrations are bold and colorful, which keeps attention well and makes it easy for kids to identify different animals on each page. It’s also sturdy enough in board book format to hold up to frequent use. Overall, a simple, interactive, and well-loved classic that works really well as a gift for young kids.

Love it! Kids love it too!

One of my toddlers favorite books! He’s a huge gran of the brown bear classics.

My grandson loved it!

These books are timeless and terrific. My child was speech delayed and these books were perfect in helping him. Beautiful images with simple literature. Great value, great quality, and inexpensive for a timeless classic.

We love brown bear, brown bear. What do you hear so we had to get this one this one is just as good and reminds me of my childhood

This twentieth-anniversary edition of the classic “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?”, written by beloved children’s author Bill Martin, Jr. and illustrated by the renowned artist Eric Carle, has been updated with a larger format, a reinforced binding, and an accompanying CD of the story read by Gwyneth Paltrow. The book is part of a series of rhythmic, rhyming texts with vibrant, full-color illustrations that introduce toddlers and kindergartners to a host of zoo animals and the sounds they make. In addition to the polar bear, we encounter a lion, hippopotamus, flamingo, zebra, boa constrictor, elephant, leopard, peacock, walrus, and a zookeeper who hears the children as they follow the story with imitations of the animal sounds introduced in the text. It’s a delightful tale sure to engage children and bound to become a favorite bedtime story. The text is large and bold for easy reading by children. However, while the text, drawings, and sensory lessons are most admirable and the book is well worth the price, I have two criticisms. The sounds the animals purportedly make are not always accurate. For example, while lions do, indeed, roar and elephants do trumpet, hippopotamuses do not snort (they grunt, growl, roar, and wheeze), zebras do not bray (they neigh, whinny, and nicker [donkeys bray!]), and peacocks do not yelp (they scream, squawk, and honk). Walruses are the most vocal of the pinnipeds: they growl, tap, knock, grunt, bark, whistle, rasp, and click, but they do not bellow. I’m also concerned about the use of a CD for storytelling. CDs could be useful for older children or for children left to their own devices, but toddlers would benefit most when stories are read to them during bonding sessions with parents, siblings, extended family, and friends. Of course, not all children are lucky enough to have parents or other family members who read to them. These criticisms notwithstanding, “Polar Bear” has many excellent qualities and is recommended. The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book and reading rhymes and evoking sounds are particularly appealing to children. Other books in the series by this dynamic duo include “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”, “Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do you See?”, and “Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?”

I loved

日本語版と交互に読み聞かせてました

Babies enjoy this when you read it like a song and you can put them to sleep easily. My grandson loves this book. And also brown bear from same author

Maravilhoso!

Similar to the brown bear book the story is very simple. It concentrates on animal naming and difference between I and we. Son loves it and he knows the story now and therefore pretends he is reading the book :)

Great price for a cute book. Good quality.