Only fond of bear hunt for two reasons - one, our dog looks like the one in the story (and is just as wuss-y) and two because upon first reading it to 18 month old dd she burst into tears at the last page (sad bear going home, head down). She was beside herself, bless, but was first sign of now almost legendary EMPATHY my darling daughter has. Otherwise it is, like most kids books, boring after the seventy fifth reading.
I find most Julia Donaldson books a bit long... but my kids like them. But then they also like Mr Men books (fall asleep after three pages and on automatic pilot for the rest of the book) and anything with diggers in (die slowly and agonisingly of boredom) or fairies/ballerinas (die an even more lingerly devastating death). I am ashamed to admit it, but I often 'accidentally' turn two pages at a time of Dig Dig Digging. Ds will cotton on one day I know but if I religiously keep doing it, maybe he will never ever realise? I think the only book I will happily read (I know, I know, I am a cow) is Slinky Malinki which is just pure poetry and Tiger who came to Tea.
Talking about books we all had as kids, does anyone remember Go Dog Go? I still have our childhood copy and my Mum is pleased that it has come to haunt me in the same way as it did her. It is hideously boring and I admit I have hidden it behind the book shelf on many occasions, but they always manage to find it.
Does anyone remember Polly and the Wolf stories? Can't wait until mine are big enough. My Mum loved reading them to us so they must be good.
As for Ant and Bee. Wow. Don't remember what they were about but the mere mention of those books take me back 35 years to the musty, sunny colonial library in Africa where we used to borrow them. Lovely memory.