Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Forty years ago, Martin and a newcomer named Eric Carle launched a cottage industry with their now-beloved classic, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967). After narrowing the original book's broad purview in two sequels, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (1991), about zoo animals, and Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? (2003), about endangered animals, this third sequel continues the thematic approach with an all-American assemblage and attention paid to the continent's many regions (a mountain goat, a rattlesnake, and a blue heron are among the creatures depicted). Martin's rhythmic text cleaves to the familiar pattern and leads readers from one double-page animal portrait to another, all crisply set against white backgrounds. Adults may appreciate the educational prospects of the North American angle, but the appeal here for the youngest children—as with the book's predecessors—will be in examining the complex, collaged textures within Carle's simple forms and in gleefully anticipating the appearance of each critter in the sequence. Mattson, Jennifer