We
We're Going on a Bear Hunt is Michael Rosen's classic 1989 picture book, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, retelling a traditional American folk chant in a steady, repeating rhythm that has made it one of the most read-aloud children's books of the past several decades. A father and his four young children, accompanied by a small dog, set off across an English countryside in search of a bear. Each obstacle they encounter, long wavy grass, a cold deep river, thick oozy mud, a big dark forest, a swirling whirling snowstorm, and a narrow gloomy cave, is met first with the same refrain, We can't go over it, we can't go under it, oh no, we've got to go through it. Oxenbury's watercolor and pencil illustrations alternate between full-color spreads and quiet black-and-white sketches, and Rosen's onomatopoeic refrains have been chanted by generations of children at bedtimes and in classrooms around the English-speaking world.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about We
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In the glass city of the One State, citizens go by numbers and live by the Table of Hours under the Benefactor. D-503, the chief engineer of the spaceship Integral, keeps a journal addressed to other planets.
Yes. George Orwell explicitly cited Yevgeny Zamyatin's We as an influence on 1984, and many critics see clear lines from We to Huxley's Brave New World as well.
Zamyatin completed We in 1921. It was banned in the Soviet Union and first published in English in 1924, with a Russian edition not appearing in his homeland until 1988.
We was written by Michael Rosen, published in 1746 by Walker.
We is 36 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, We takes most readers under an hour to finish.
We is a standalone novel by Michael Rosen, not part of a series.
We is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.