Saturday, December 8, 2012

Hooligan Bear A Special Day ~ Children's Book Review ~



 

Title: Hooligan Bear A Special Day

Author: Ian Toynton

Illustrator: Andrea Dietrich

Publisher: Smith Publicity

Publication Date:

Pages: 32

ISBN: 9781601311313

 
From the Publisher:

When Hooligan Bear discovers that Little Louie has never had a birthday, he quickly comes up with a plan. He gathers the other bears together, and they set off for an exciting adventure at the bakery.



 

My View:




As much as I read, I am always looking for new books for my kids.  They also love to read, or more specifically to have Mommy and Daddy read to them (well the 5 year old is starting to read more on her own, but I digress).  I recently had the chance to review the new story in the Hooligan Bear series Hooligan Bear A Special Day.  I will admit, I have not read the original Hooligan Bear book, but that really isn't an issue in young children's books.  The book starts with a little background about the bears, but really it is unnecessary to the story.

The story itself, I am still puzzling over whether I would read it to my children or not.  It centers around a group of 5 formerly stuffed teddy bears that have come to life.  One such bear, Louie, realizes he has never had a birthday, in fact he doesn't know what a birthday even is.  Hooligan takes charge of a plan to steal a cupcake from the local baker to give to Louie.  Do you see where I might have an issue here?  Also as part of the plan they bears tie themselves to a rope and repel from the roof of the Bakery to an open window.  I am not sure these are messages I would want to be sending my children.

The story is otherwise cute and the illustrations are top notch.  You, as a parent, would need to be prepared to have some side conversations about what the Bears are doing wrong and what a Birthday is and why it is important.

Buy it on Amazon

I would like to thank Smith Publicity and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

3 comments:

  1. So glad that you read and reviewed this book, most of the time parents and teachers will just look at the cover of a book or allow their child to just pick out a book, that they want just from what the cover of the book looks like. Thank you for giving heads up on this book

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  2. I can see why a parent might have an issue with these bears taking a cupcake! I think that if this is a children's book they story teller needs to be careful what they are conveying. I like the pictures of the bears on the cover.Maybe that is why they are called Hooligan Bears. They get into mishchief!

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  3. Oh I know. My kindergartener brings home the strangest books from "Library" day at school purely based on the cover. Some of the best books I have read have the worst covers.

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