Hello there! Welcome to Booktomato! Today we are reading this sweet little water-colored picture book, Bear and Bunny by Daniel Pinkwater and Will Hildebrand. Come read along with us!
"The bunny and the bear are friends. They like to wander in the woods, look for things to eat, and talk things over."
While reading this story of a bear and bunny companionship, I was reminded a lot of another bear and bunny friendship, well actually, a bear/bunny/donkey/tiger/piglet/owl relationship. This book is very much like and maybe even inspired by The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in the story's tone and pacing and the way the characters get their facts delightfully wrong sometimes. This isn't a BAM POW action in your face book, but instead, Bear and Bunny have slow paced, gentle but entertaining conversations as they walk through the forest. Towards the middle of the book, they decide to find themselves a pet to love and care for, and they find the cutest little frog to take home with them.
We enjoyed this story a good deal, but with one edit I made as I was reading. The story meanders like a little stream, and the slow pacing combined with its larger word count made it just slightly too long to read in one sitting with my preschooler. I found as I read it that there are several natural stopping places within the story almost like the book wants to have chapters. I just broke the story up into those chapters and read it in installments for my three year old. Naturally, an older child, like a first grader, could sit through the whole thing.
Have a great day and take some time today to read a good book!
