One of the books that I recently picked up from the library to add to the books we’ve read by Karma Wilson is Bear Snores On. This is her first book, but having read many that she has written since, I can say that this one is as good as the next.


The Story

Just as the saying goes ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, so should animal friends let a sleeping bear sleep. In this cute book we see bear in his lair happily sleeping and snoring.

Of course that wouldn’t make much of a story so Karma Wilson adds a small mouse, who wants to stay warm, into the cave. After building a fire along comes a hare that also wants shelter from the winters cold wind.

They make popcorn and tea and are delighted when a badger comes along and brings honey-nuts to the growing party. Along come a gopher, a mole, a wren and a raven:

They tweet and the titter. They chat and they chitter.
But the bear snores on.

In a cave in the woods,
a slumbering bear
sleeps through the party
in his very own lair.

All is well until a pepper fleck hits the bears nose…with a big Aaaaachoooo bear awakens and is sad that they’ve all had fun without him.

Now that he is wide awake they fix bear some of their treats, but of course all of the animals are tired and fall asleep…all of the animals except for bear, of course.


The Illustrations

This book has beautiful illustrations by Jane Chapman who also illustrated Bear Wants More, Happy and Honey and Honey Helps

The acrylic painted pages are full of soft colors and make me feel as if I’m laying in cave surrounded by the winters snow. Each page is filled with color with no white borders around it. On the pages where the picture is centered in the middle there are soft pastels to surround the artwork. This book uses lots of blues, yellows, browns and white, in soft muted tones as well as a bright pop of color in small doses.

The large text is very easy to see on all of the pages and make this book just right for holding up and reading to a classroom during circle time or to read to a child that is sitting on your lap.


My Feelings

This book is so much fun to read to my daycare children and they absolutely love hearing this story of bear.

I love that there is the repetitive line: But the bear snores on. It makes reading aloud more fun because the children really listen for this line so that they can repeat it too. We then all snore. They have so much fun pretending to be bear.

I also appreciate that this book doesn’t talk down to young children, but rather uses some words that they may not be familiar with before reading. Words like lair and hare and divvy are used and allow me to help the children learn about language and the different words that can be used for something. I will usually stop reading and ask them if they remember what the word means and it only took two readings before they knew that a lair was the bears cave and a hare was a rabbit.

The illustrations are just fantastic and really add so much to this wonderful story. I love the soft flow of all of the drawings and the way the illustrator makes all of the animals come to life. Their expressions make their personalities come through on each of the pages.

The daycare kids favorite part of this book is when bear wakes up and we see the word aaacchoooo written across the page, we all give our best aaacchhooo too.

I would recommend this book for toddlers and preschoolers and even into early elementary school children. We learn a bit about animals and language too, while being entertained with another great Karma Wilson book.


Nuts & Bolts

Bear Snores On was published, in 2002, by Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.

This book is recommended for 3 – 7 year olds and may be purchased for a jacket price of $16.00 US and $24.50 CAN

ISBN: 0-689-83187-0


Recommended: Yes