We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
Published 2003 · 40 pages · 11,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature
How hard is We're Going on a Bear Hunt to read?
We're Going on a Bear Hunt scores 90 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
- Rosen uses everyday words and onomatopoeia such as swishy swashy, squelch squerch and hoooo woooo. A young child can follow every word, like the plain language in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret but simpler still.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- Sentences are short and repeated, and the refrain "We can't go over it, we can't go under it" varies little. The grammar stays at a preschool level.
- Abstraction: 80 out of 100
- Everything is concrete: grass, river, mud, a cave, a bear. There is no abstract argument, only a walk and a retreat.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Few words sit on each page and each page adds one new setting. The book is lighter than The Diary of a Young Girl.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- The story states what happens at every step. The only inference left is how the family feels when the bear appears, which the illustrations show.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- The bear can stand for the unknown and the obstacles for challenges, but the book never asks for that reading. It stays literal for its young audience.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- The tone is sincere and playful. The one wry note is a bold hunt ending in a sprint to bed.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- The hunt ends in a clear retreat and the family is safe under the covers. The closing image of the bear alone on the shore leaves only a small lingering note.
- Structural complexity: 100 out of 100
- The structure is a linear outbound journey followed by the same journey in reverse. Pictures shift between color and black-and-white, but the pattern is simple.
How We're Going on a Bear Hunt is regarded
We're Going on a Bear Hunt holds a literary regard score of 49 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.