Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear - Book Review

At two and a quarter, BB is becoming aware of the changing seasons. The dark is very intriguing, and now that night time descends before bedtime, he loves to go out to look at the stars and moon. We have also been enjoying some relatively good weather for the time of year, and last Wednesday, BB and I took a lovely walk along a wooded track, and soaked up some of the autumn sunshine.

I love this time of year, when the sun shines in a clear blue sky and the air is as crisp as the falling leaves. I missed the autumn leaf drop during my years in the desert and was keen to get out and show BB the joys of kicking though the crunchy leaves.

He needed no showing at all. It seems that kicking through fallen leaves is an instinctive behaviour, as is rolling in them. Watching him delight in these simple pleasures was great. How brilliant is childhood. Several times he rolled on his back and just lay there, looking up, saying "Hello trees" and in the end I had to join in!

Hello trees

When we got home, a large letter was waiting. Inside was a new book, Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear

Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear - Cover Illustration

Big Brown Bear doesn't want to go to bed - he'll miss Autumn, with it's crunchy leaves, and Winter, with it's sparkly snow. His friends promise to wake him up, but nothing works! So they come up with a clever plan...

We couldn't believe it. How perfect that a book about the joys of rolling in the autumn leaves should have arrived - we had to read it at once!

As you might predict from the description, the story is about a bear who doesn't want to hibernate (described as a long sleep) as he know this means he will miss out on Autumn and Winter. He wants to roll in crunchy leaves, jump in giant puddles and make a snow bear. His friends promise to wake him up when the forest is a carpet of leaves, and when the rain comes tumbling down…

But they can't. Big Bear won't wake up!

His friends have some very clever ideas though.

Obviously we loved this book just because of the timeliness of it's arrival, but now that we have read it a few times, we love it for other reasons too. It is a tale of friendship and doing nice things purely for someone else's pleasure. It is beautifully illustrated and well written. It gives you the opportunity to discuss changing seasons, and hibernation.

The only thing I don't like is that the text is all different sizes. I am fine with that in some cases, for example when they are shouting wakey wakey at the bear, larger text works well to show a big, loud voice, or  just using a larger font for the dialogue in general is good too - but there are too many different sizes here, it appears quite random and to me it seems untidy.

Don't let that put you off the book though, it is a great little book for toddler that loves exploring the natural world and deserves a place on the book shelf.

Disclaimer - we received this book free of charge for the purpose of this review as part of the Parragon Book Buddies Scheme. No payment was received for writing this post, and the opinions are entirely our own.