Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear! – Tracey Corderoy and Rachel Swirles

Little Miss C's school recently celebrated literacy week with a week which involved the local fire brigade fetching a large egg down off the school roof! Watching a whole school's worth of pupils watching this unfold in the playground taught me so much about what an important role books play in our children's education. Stories can take them to new places and teach them so much about the world around them, as well as being great fun to read too.

This week it was time for our next monthly review book to arrive from Parragon and LMC and I excitedly unwrapped a copy of Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear! by Tracey Corderoy and Rachel Swirles. Now I have to admit that the first thing that won me over with this book was the gorgeous granny square crochet blanked that's on the front cover!

Big Brown Bear is getting ready to hibernate through the winter, but before he goes to sleep he starts thinking about all the things he's going to miss whilst asleep. He wants to roll in autumn leaves, jump in puddles and make a snowman snowbear. His friends mouse, hare and squirrel promise to try and wake him up when the leaves fall, when it rains and when it snows and with these promises in place he curls up and goes to sleep.

Unfortunately, despite all their best efforts, his friends can't wake him, so instead they decide to save autumn and winter for when he wakes up in spring, so Big Brown Bear doesn't miss out.

Reading Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear was the first time that Little Miss C had come across the fact that some animals hibernate through winter and it sparked quite a lot of conversation about which animals do and don't hibernate. (I may even have had to say "ask you father" when the questions got a bit too difficult for me!) It also led to us talking about the seasons and the different characteristic weather in each one, and yesterday afternoon we even went to the park so that we could jump in crunchy leaves, inspired by Big Brown Bear.

This time of year is just perfect for reading this book and it's ages since we've read a book together which has prompted quite so many learning possibilities. Back in the days before I had LMC I remember reading SouleMama's blog in which she talked about how as part of their unschooling she used to make available to her children a variety of seasonal books and change them around as the year progressed. Since then I keep meaning to add a bit more structure to which books we read when and reading this book has reminded me to try to do so. 

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear as part of our role as a Parragon Book Buddy.