Today's children's book review is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle. You'll notice right away that this is Bill Martin Jr's second book to be reviewed here and rightly so. This book is equally as mind-blowingly senseless as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. In fact, one might even say that this book makes Chicka Chicka Boom Boom look like a coherently written story with great plot progression. Eric Carle, you may know, is a fairly famous children's book author. His greatest book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is the only good book he has ever written, but Eric is not the first author in history to make a living off the accolades of one published title. After writing The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric spent the rest of his career trying to emulate its success with a giant steaming pile of published books such as Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me, The Foolish Tortoise, The Greedy Python, The Very Lonely Firefly, The Grouchy Ladybug, From Head to Toe, The Lamb and The Butterfly, The Very Quiet Cricket, etc... Seriously, have you heard of any of those books before? No, you haven't because they suck. Eric Carle is the Mark Bellhorn of children's book authors. If you swing at every single pitch, you'll strike out 177 times but you may also hit 17 home runs. Eric Carle has written one good book out of the 50 or so that he has had published in his career because every time he sees a bug or a random animal, he immediately pens a book by finding the first adjective that whacks him in the face. Hint, the one good book that he wrote isn't this one. Teaming up Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr is like adding vinegar to ReaLemon 100% Lemon Juice. If you drink it, you will probably lose the ability to taste for at least 48 hours, and you may develop an acute fear of triangles. After reading an Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr authored work, your brain will shut down, and you will slip into a coma to prevent damage to the cerebral cortex. It is the brain's way of protecting itself.
The setting: A giant white background where strangely primary-colored animals and people can co-exist
The characters: A brown bear, a red bird, a blue horse, a purple cat, a yellow duck, a goldfish, a white dog, a green frog, a black sheep, a creepy looking teacher (for some fucking reason), and inexplicably, a group of children that may or may not be ghosts
This book starts out pretty awesome with a brown bear that can talk. "I see a red bird looking at me," he says. Cool, the animals can talk. Let's ask the red bird what he can see.
Wait a second.... the brown bear just said that the red bird was looking at him. How can the red bird see a yellow duck looking at him if he's looking at the bear? Is the bear standing next to the duck, and if so, duck, get the heck out of there! The bear is going to eat you! Maybe the animals are standing in a giant circle and the red bird is looking at the bear and seeing a duck looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Or maybe the red bird is darting his eyes back and forth looking at the bear and the duck???? Well, what do the other animals see? Oh, they see other animals looking at them... again, how can they be looking at two different animals at once!
Wait, what? What the heck is that? I thought this book was about colors and animals. Where the hell did the teacher come from? Are these animals in a classroom? That can't be possible because there is a friggin' bear here! Maybe they are at the zoo.... but what zoo has a white dog or purple cat (other than the Stone Zoo?) Maybe they are out in the wild someplace where bears and ducks and cats co-mingle, but that doesn't explain how the friggin' goldfish got here! They aren't in the water because there's a red bird! WHAT IS GOING ON!
Well, of course YOU see children looking at you, you're a teacher! You're probably teaching a class. Wait a second.... Are the animals just drawings? Are they not real animals? Is this all like an imagination exercise with children drawing pictures of animals in primary colors?
NO!!!!! The children can't see all those things looking at them because all of those animals are looking at other animals, too! You can't be looking at three different things all at once! That's just not possible! Also, why is there a giant empty space under the bear and next to the frog? What is that all about? Am I supposed to draw in my own animal?
In summation, there are absolutely no blind animals in this book. They can all see other things. The illustrations are pretty crappy and the teacher is wicked creepy looking. The picture of the children is just down right scary. I think they might be some sort of hoard of zombie children. I can't really be sure. However, Lily loves this book, and she gives it 5 out of 5 stars. You can purchase Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? at Amazon for $8.09, but I would buy The Very Hungry Caterpillar at Amazon for $5.98, instead! You'll save over $2 on the book and $5 on Tylenol from the headache this book induces. Happy reading!
