The Bear Came over to My House - Hardcover

Ages 3-6. Inspired by the familiar song "The Bear Came over the Mountain," this amusing story has playful language, cute pictures, and a try-to-guess-the-rhyming-word-before-I-turn-the-page format that will make it popular for interactive story-time sessions. The repeating pattern begins with a three-line stanza, which ends with a question that is answered on the next page. For example, "The bear came over to my house / To eat what he could eat. And what do you think the bear ate?" A turn of the page shows the bear enjoying "A treat," with the words appearing in bold type at the top of the page. The middle line of the stanza changes with each new sequence: "To do what he could do . . .," "To get what he could get," and so on. Each time the audience is asked to guess what the bear did, got, thought. Warhola's bright, silly watercolors sometimes provide a clue and almost always a laugh. The book will be fun to read aloud, and its repetition and rhyme will make it a good choice for increasing sight-word vocabulary and reading-readiness skills. Lauren Peterson
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