Bears on Wheels (Beginning Beginner Books: Bright and Early Books)

Rating:
Summary: This bear makes riding a unicycle look easy!
Review: In this fun book we follow a bear that is riding a unicycle ("One bear on one wheel.") as he takes a ride through the countryside. During his ride he keeps managing to pick up passengers, some are hitchhiking, and some just jump out of trees on top of him. Each time he meets another bike on the road there is a collision, but our bear always lands on his feet (or on his unicycle) and rides off alone.

This is a really cute book. The bears all have expressive faces, and all the pictures are bold and colorful. The words are never more expressive than "Two bears on one wheel." Or "Five on one." but yet the book flows and manages to keep my attention. As I said, a very cute book.

Loggie-log-log-log

Rating:
Summary: My son loves it!
Review: It has a good swingy rhythm which makes it nice for reading out loud and giving young children the idea of mixing around items within a set. Nice ending as the original bear heads off alone, again.

Rating:
Summary: Wheeling to Excellence!
Review: One of the many books that we acquired through the Groilier Book Club for my daughter many years ago was Bears on Wheels. My daughter is now 13, but my 8 year old son enjoyed it when he was younger, and now my 2 year old has just discovered it and is learning to count better.

Bears on Wheels, by Jan and Stan Berenstain, is considered to be A Bright and Early Counting Book.

The Story

Not really much of a story to this one, it is more visual than anything. It starts off with...

One bear. One wheel.

The next page follows with...

One bear on one wheel.

That basically sets the stage for the rest of the book, you read along with the simple text and encourage your child to count the bears and wheels, which at one point goes up to 21, and then back to one on one again.

Illustrations

The illustrations, by Jan and Stan Berenstain are bright, colorful and comical. They follow the simple wording where a young child can make word/picture associations. The pictures are meant to be comical and not to be taken seriously, the bears fall off the wheels and are not wearing helmets.

My Thoughts

I think is a cute book for helping with counting and picture/word association. My 2 year old already helps me read the book by the pictures and it is helping him to learn to count better. For a child who is just learning to read, it is a good book because there are no hard words and it is presented with a simplistic approach.

The only thing I don't like, and I know I'm probably being picky, is the fact that none of the bears are wearing helmets, some wear hats, but no helmets and they are falling off of these wheels. I don't really hold that against the book though, since it was originally published back in 1969, when bike safety and wearing helmets weren't even thought of.

Since it is a pretty simplistic book, it is easily memorized by parent and child, so I try to mix it up a little bit by not necessarily going in order. I may start out on the first page and then skip to the fourth page and ask my son how many bear does he see and then how many wheels. It can also be helpful with colors since the illustrations are bright and colorful, sometimes we go through and I have my son tell me what color shirt the bear, or bears, are wearing. But mostly, it helps him with his counting, since he's already pretty good with his colors, but it can get kind of tiring when he will want to do this for an hour or more!

I would recommend this book for anyone with a child that is learning to count and/or read, the simplistic style is perfect for the beginner.

Rating:
Summary: great learning to count book
Review: This book is a great book for small children that are just learning to read and count. The book goes from one to twenty-one and its colorful pictures help keep kids attention. I recomend this book for every child who is learning to read with there parents or big brothers or sisters.

Rating:
Summary: Wheeling to Excellence!
Review: This is another in a series of Berenstain Bears books which exudes creativity and integrity. It follows the adventures of one of the smaller bears and we see him go through a series of situations and possible mishaps, with one at the very end, which he survives quite nicely. But the nicest part of the book is that it is short, for the short attention spanned in your household, with enough color and action to attract the most uninterested reader. I found it to be wonderful and an excellent addition to a child's library. Highly recommended!!