Author | Stan and Jan Berenstain |
---|---|
Published | 1962 Random House |
Media type | Hardcover |
Pages | 72 |
ISBN | 0-394-80028-1 |
The Big Honey Hunt is a children's book by Stan and Jan Berenstain, the first in the long running Berenstain Bears series. It was first published in 1962, by Beginner Books, an imprint of Random House, co-founded and managed by Dr. Seuss. The book introduces a family of anthropomorphic bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Small Bear (later known in the series as Brother Bear following the introduction of Sister Bear). [1]
At the beginning of the book, around the Berenstain Bears' table, Mama discovers that they are out of honey and tells Papa to go get some more. He agrees and takes Small Bear along with him. However, he ignores Mama's advice to go to the store to buy the honey and tries to collect wild honey instead. To that end, Papa and Small Bear follow around a bee as it flies from tree to tree. At each tree, Papa declares that he is sure there is honey inside of it, but instead variously encounters an owl, a porcupine, and a family of skunks. When they do finally find a tree full of honey, it is protected by a swarm of bees. The bees chase them down to the river, where they jump in to avoid them. After the bees leave and the bears exit the water, Papa gives up and readily buys the honey from the store, as Mama suggested before. [2]
Stan and Jan Berenstain, a husband and wife team from Pennsylvania, were already successful illustrators and cartoonists by the time The Big Honey Hunt was published, with their work appearing in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping throughout the 1940s and 1950s. [3] By the early 1960s, partly influenced by their son Leo's love for Dr. Seuss books, the Berenstains decided to create books for young children. For their first book, they decided to use bears as the main characters because they were widely popular and were easy to draw. [4] [5] According to their other son Mike Berenstain, Stan and Jan based their family of bear characters partly on themselves and their two sons. [3] For the relationship between the father and son, in particular, they used the 1931 film The Champ as a reference. [6]
They decided to publish their first book with Random House, under the banner of Dr. Seuss' Beginner Books label. [3] They took their first effort, Freddy Bear's Spanking, about a small bear who tries to avoid a spanking from his parents by suggesting a list of other punishments, to their first meeting with Seuss. [6] Seuss praised the basic premise of the book but criticized many aspects of its execution. He became their first editor, and they spent the next two years revising their book to suit Seuss' rigorous standards. [3] [6] Freddy Bear's Spanking slowly became The Big Honey Hunt, and in the process, the Berenstains began to develop a formula for writing and illustrating children's books. [7] According to their 2002 memoir, Down a Sunny Dirt Road, this included "easy words, short sentences, word/picture clues, rollicking rhythm, resolute rhyme... shameless slapstick and outrageous jokes". [7]
Like later books in the series, The Big Honey Hunt focuses on a family of anthropomorphic bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Small Bear, who was later renamed Brother Bear when Sister Bear arrived in 1974. [3] The Berenstains described the characters thusly: "A bluff, overenthusiastic Papa Bear who wore bib overalls and a plaid shirt and... a wise Mama Bear who wore a blue dress with white polka dots... and a bright, lively little cub". [8] Like other Berenstain Bears books, especially other early books in the series, The Big Honey Hunt features Papa Bear ignoring the advice of the wise Mama Bear, getting into trouble, and finally relenting. The book, like other early Berenstain Bears books, focuses primarily on the relationship between father and son while Mama Bear plays only a secondary role. Later books began to focus more on other relationships, especially after the introduction of Sister Bear. [9]
The book's visuals also differ from later books in the series, particularly in character design. In The Big Honey Hunt and other early Berenstain Bears books, the bears have larger and more pronounced ears and noses, thicker eyebrows, and lighter fur than their later redesigns. The plaid shirt Papa wears under his overalls is red and white instead of yellow and black.
The Big Honey Hunt was published in 1962 by Beginner Books, an imprint of Random House co-founded and edited by Dr. Seuss. The book was well-received, with The New York Times praising its "good, simple vocabulary" and "natural repetition". [10]
Initially, after its release, Stan and Jan proposed creating a series based around their bear characters to be published by Beginner Books, but Seuss encouraged them to do something different. They began work on a book about a penguin, which they worked on for a few months. In the meantime, however, Random House salesmen had been marketing The Big Honey Hunt and it had been selling well. Seuss revisited their idea of turning the book into a series, which spawned The Bike Lesson, and eventually many other books featuring the Berenstain Bears. [11]
The book was originally published with the authors' full names, Stanley and Janice, printed on the cover, but Seuss shortened their names to Stan and Jan in later editions, saying, "That's what you call each other. And that's what I call you. Besides, it fits on one line". [11] The pair used the moniker "Stan and Jan Berenstain" throughout the rest of their career.
In 2002, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the book's original publication, the Berenstains published an edition with an updated cover. In 2012, another update of the cover added a "50th-anniversary" logo but left the cover art unchanged from the 2002 edition.
The Cat in the Hat is a 1957 children's book written and illustrated by American author Theodor Geisel, using the pen name Dr. Seuss. The story centers on a tall anthropomorphic cat who wears a red and white-striped top hat and a red bow tie. The Cat shows up at the house of Sally and her brother one rainy day when their mother is away. Despite the repeated objections of the children's fish, the Cat shows the children a few of his tricks in an attempt to entertain them. In the process, he and his companions, Thing One and Thing Two, wreck the house. As the children and the fish become more alarmed, the Cat produces a machine that he uses to clean everything up and disappears just before the children's mother comes home.
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images in picture books can be produced in a range of media, such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor, and pencil. Picture books often serve as pedagogical resources, aiding with children's language development or understanding of the world.
The Berenstain Bears is a children's literature franchise created by the late Stan and Jan Berenstain and continued by their son, Mike Berenstain, who assumed partial authorship in 2002, and full authorship in 2012 following his mother's passing. The books feature a family of anthropomorphic grizzly bears who generally learn a moral or safety-related lesson in the course of each story.
Stanley Melvin Berenstain and Janice Marian Berenstain were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series The Berenstain Bears.
Hop on Pop is a 1963 children's picture book by Dr. Seuss, published as part of the Random House Beginner Books series. The book is subtitled "The Simplest Seuss for Youngest Use", and contains several short poems about a variety of characters designed to introduce basic phonics concepts to children.
The Berenstain Bears is an animated comedy television series based on the children's book series of the same name by Stan and Jan Berenstain, produced by Hanna-Barbera Pty Ltd., and Southern Star Productions. It aired in the United States from September 14, 1985, to March 7, 1987 on CBS with 52 11-minute episodes in 26 half-hour shows produced. Reruns of the show would continue to air on the network until September 5, 1987. Each show consisted of two episodes, the first being an adaptation of one of the books, the second being an original story. The series was nominated in 1987 for a Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming; it was also nominated that year for a Humanitas Prize in the category of Non-Prime Time Children's Animated Show.
The Berenstain Bears is a preschool children's animated television comedy series based on the children's book series of the same name by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Acting as a remake of the 1985–1987 cartoon series of the same name, the series follows the lives of a family of anthropomorphic bears who learn a moral or safety-related lesson during the course of each episode. The series premiered on PBS Kids on January 6, 2003. A total of 40 episodes were produced, with the series airing until September 10, 2004.
Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 3–9, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife Helen Palmer Geisel. Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957), whose title character appears in the brand's logo. Cerf compiled a list of 379 words as the basic vocabulary for young readers, along with another 20 slightly harder "emergency" words. No more than 200 words were taken from that list to write The Cat in the Hat. Subsequent books in the series were modeled on the same requirement.
A Fish Out of Water is a 1961 American children's book written by Helen Palmer Geisel and illustrated by P. D. Eastman. The book is based on a short story by Palmer's husband Theodor Geisel, "Gustav, the Goldfish", which was published with his own illustrations in Redbook magazine in June 1950.
The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories is a collection of seven illustrated stories by children's author Dr. Seuss published by Random House on September 27, 2011. Though they were originally published in magazines in the early 1950s, they had never been published in book form and are quite rare, described by the publisher as "the literary equivalent of buried treasure". The stories were discovered by Charles D. Cohen, a Massachusetts dentist and a Seuss scholar and biographer, who also wrote an introduction to the collection.
Wanderful Interactive Storybooks is a developer of interactive storybook apps based on the titles originally published as Living Books by Broderbund Software.
Oceanhouse Media, Inc. is a publisher of iOS, Android and Windows 8 apps. Their offerings include digital book apps from brands such as Dr. Seuss, The Berenstain Bears and Little Critter, as well as self-improvement apps from Hay House authors, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Oceanhouse Media was founded in January 2009 by Michel and Karen Kripalani in Encinitas, California. The company released its first iOS app, Bowls - Authentic Tibetan Singing Bowls, on the Apple App Store in March 2009. Oceanhouse Media currently has licensing agreements in place with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Hay House, Mercer Mayer, HarperCollins, Random House, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Chronicle Books, Chicken Soup for the Soul and many others.
Rita Guibert was an American author, journalist, editor, researcher and translator.
The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree is a Christmas-themed animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and directed by Mordicai Gerstein, the program made its debut on NBC on December 3, 1979. The television special inspired a book by the same name, published by Random House in 1980.
The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw was a Thanksgiving-themed animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and directed by Mordicai Gerstein and Al Kouzel, the program made its debut on NBC on November 20, 1980. The television special inspired a book, The Berenstain Bears' Thanksgiving, published by Scholastic in 1997.
The Berenstain Bears' Easter Surprise is an Easter-themed animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and Hal Hoffer, and directed by Mordicai Gerstein and Al Kouzel, the program made its debut on NBC on April 14, 1981.
The Berenstain Bears Comic Valentine is a Valentine-themed animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and directed by Mordicai Gerstein and Al Kouzel, the program made its debut on NBC on February 13, 1982.
The Berenstain Bears Play Ball, also known as The Berenstain Bears' Littlest Leaguer, is a baseball-themed animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and directed by Al Kouzel, the program made its debut on NBC on May 6, 1983.