Hush...Little Bear is Sleeping by Surya Sajnani

Hush...Little Bear is Sleeping by Surya Sajnani
Buy Hush...Little Bear is Sleeping by Surya Sajnani at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Zoe Page
Summary: A fun play book of animals and sounds, from the usual to the slightly more unusual
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 8	Date: October 2016
Publisher: QED Publishing
ISBN: 978-1784936624
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In this somewhat ironic interactive board book, Baby Bear is trying to sleep but other animals around him keep making a noise. I say ironic because this would otherwise be a perfect bedtime story, but because it's a press and listen book with sound effects on every page, it's far too much fun and more likely to get them engaged and playing than carefully drifting off to slumber.

This book looks like a normal board book to start with, square and sturdy and presented in just three colours (black, white and blue) for a neat design that will appeal to caregivers who want a break from gaudy. There are five double page spreads with the first four featuring different animals who keep disturbing Baby Bear and then, blissfully, a contended little bear who has finally dozed off. For each page there is a sound effect of the animal in question. If you're expecting a cat (meow!) and a dog (whoof!) then you'd be spot on. There's an owl too, appropriate for night-time, but interestingly it is a cricket that rounds off the set, chirping away. In this way it's very educational, after all a straw poll of friends' offspring confirms that they know their common animal noises but are stumped by the sound a cricket makes, but it's also just very intriguing. You could have a neighing horse, mooing cow or sheep going baa, but no, here we have a cricket.

The noises play when you press the tab on each page. It's a slightly fiddly task and one that an adult will need to help with as you have to be quite precise in where you press, unlike some sound books where swatting vaguely in the right area of the page rewards you with noise. They are pretty good sounds to be fair. The owl, dog and cat are immediately recognisable, and the pictures on the other pages help confirm it's a cricket chirping (not a phone ringing, which would be my other guess) and, finally, Baby Bear snoring (not any human man I've ever been asleep next to). The fact that it's just sound effects rather than narration makes it far less annoying too, as you don't have a tinny voice squeaking out at you, just a short, self-contained animal noise.

As board books go, this one is definitely on the next level because the illustrations are wonderful, the colour scheme is refreshing, and the sounds make the whole experience of reading more interactive (without you having to resort to doing your best cricket impression). For this reason, it's a book I'd definitely recommend for sharing.

Thanks go to the publishers for supplying this title. For more on a similar theme, we would happily recommend the beautifully packaged Animal Noises by Nicola Killen.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Hush...Little Bear is Sleeping by Surya Sajnani at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Hush...Little Bear is Sleeping by Surya Sajnani at Amazon.com.

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