Book Title: #PPBF: Bear Snores On

Author: Karma Wilson

Illustrations: Jane Chapman

Publisher & Year: Little Simon © 2002

Intended Age: 1-4 years

Topic/Themes: Bears, Sleep Issues

Opening Lines: “In a cave in the woods, in his deep, dark lair, through the long cold winter sleeps a great brown bear.”

Synopsis:A bear is sleeping and snoring on while a mouse, hare, badger, gopher, mole, wren, and raven start to party in his den. Bear wakes up and “BEAR ROARS and he RUMBLES!” but ultimately joins the party.
What I love about this book: Even though this book was published in 2002, I had never heard of it until Meredith and Kevin, parents of two-year-old Kieran, raved about how much they love to read this book aloud. Then, Carrie Finison shared on Twitter that she had this book in her mind when she wrote her amazing Dozens of Doughnuts! It’s a perfect picture book with its inviting rhythm and rhyme, beautiful language, engaging storyline, and heartwarming illustrations.

 Quick Write Activity:

A Quick Write is a short burst of writing in response to a prompt. It is a surprisingly fun and powerful practice to generate creative writing

This book is a fabulous mentor text for writers of all ages. Read and reread until the language and rhythm sink into your soul.

Then, brainstorm a list of titles using the same title pattern as BEAR SNORES ON: NOUN VERB ADVERB. Here are some of the titles I brainstormed:

NOUN/VERB/ADVERB
Tortoise Walks Away
Chick Hatches Soon
Moon Rises Tonight
Kangaroo Hops Hardly Ever
Tang Tries Tomorrow

Next, analyze the rhyme scheme and meter of Bear Snores On and/or try your hand at writing in free verse or narrative by selecting one of your brainstormed titles. Here are the results of a Quick Write with my “Tortoise Walks Away” title:

Tortoise Walks Away

In our house near town
we lived with our Tortoise.
One bright summer day,
Our dad did implore us:

“Time to go outside.
 Time to play in the sun.
We’ll take Tortoise, too.
Everyone deserves fun.”

(To be continued…)

This review is part of #PPBF (Perfect Picture Book Friday) where bloggers share great picture books. Organized and curated by author Susanna Leonard Hill, she keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books here.

Have you read this book? Let me know in the comments.

Reflections on this Book: This book reminds me of how transcendent a well-told story in rhyme can be and how challenging they are to write. I love this book and the writing prompt inspired by it and look forward to sharing both with readers and writers of all ages.