#Booky100Keepers Day 98: "We're going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury (Walker Books)

As our #Booky100Keepers list nearly draws to a close, I had to cast eyes back over the entire list to make sure I hadn't already featured this one. Any children's book list of recommendations will have certain books that folk will firmly get behind, and "We're going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury seems to have escaped the usual "We love it / we hate it now / we love it again / no we definitely hate it now and it's not cool any more" thing that book folk go through from time to time with beloved children's titles.

But let's face it, this book bounces along, it has an entertaining story, it has an imaginative twist or two in it, and it's just so filled with alliterative read-aloud fun that it's nigh-on impossible to resist.

We bought this way back in 2012 when C was still knee high to a grasshopper and it swiftly ended up being a bedtime favourite. Back then we probably used to read at least 3-4 picture books a night to her, and this was always somewhere in the mix.

A family jaunt out into the great outdoors is filled with swishy grass to wrestle your way through, squishy mud to wade through, trip-tastic forests to navigate and then at the end, a cave...but what's inside? Or more likely who...

Michael Rosen is usually quite quick to point out that this isn't his work entirely, and the rhyme existed long before the book did. He's also very quick to point out that a large part of the success of this book is down to Helen Oxenbury's utterly perfect illustrations, filled with energy and youthful vibrance and it's these that are always the biggest draw for me, marvelling at how her sparse lines and glorious watercolours depict a living breathing landscape for her awesome family of characters to inhabit.

This was one of the books that we used to read whenever we did read-aloud events (sadly that never turned into a regular gig, which is a shame as they were always so much fun to do but lacking any silly props or daft hats I guess no one wanted to book a baldy 50-something to read aloud to their kids). What always struck me is that kids who had never heard of the book before (and yes, there were a surprising number) always got quite scared at the bit at the end. The book goes silent, wordless as the chase between the bear and the family kicks off - with the bear chasing them right to the front door of their house. I found that quite interesting, that the dark twist elicited that response, but the 'damping down' at the end as the lonely bear trudged back off to his cave always brought those kids around and turned the bear from a menacing foe into something of a sympathetic character really.

Like / hate it (and I'll be brutally honest here, the animated TV version was pretty terrible and left us utterly cold due to the liberties it took with the original story) it is without doubt one of those revered and hallowed books that you really ought to have on your kids' bookshelves. A real classic.

Original review links and articles: 

Come to Discover for a brilliant Bear Hunt spectacular from October 2015

Don't miss out on the biggest "Bear Hunt" reading in history!

Three new fantastic books for lovers of nature and the great outdoors. Perfect for Spring and Summer - out now from Walker Books

ReadItDaddy Reads aloud - Mostly Books and Usborne's 40th Anniversary, the perfect time for storytelling fun!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury (Walker Books)