The Biggest Bear

Rating:
Summary: This book is offensive and inappropriate!!!!!!!!
Review: This book contains disturbing images and illustrations of dead bears slung over hunters' shoulders, little boys toting guns and nightmare inducing violent images. A young boy is supposed to shoot his 'pet bear' however, the book's 'happy ending' instead features the bear captured and living in a tiny cage in a zoo!!! Appalling! How could anyone besides an NRA card carrier and serial killer want to read this to a child?

Rating:
Summary: A story about a child who must shoot and kill his friend.
Review: This book was awarded the Caldecott Medal as the best illustrated children's book of 1953. The Biggest Bear was illustrator Lynd Ward's first attempt to write and illustrate a children's book. You will fall in love with the rich detail and quality of the woodcuts of forest and farm scenes. The story itself will provide much food for thought about what growing up is all about. The book provides more of a context for hunting than is needed to tell the story, which is why I graded the book down one star.

Johnny Orchard's barn never had a bearskin drying on it. His grandfather always said, "Better a bear in the orchard than an Orchard in the bear." Johnny felt humiliated by what he thought was a cowardly view. He swore to kill the biggest bear anyone had ever seen. "If I ever see a bear, I'll shoot him so fast he won't know what hit him."

Johnny's chance to go hunting alone finally comes. He finds a bear cub. Rather than shoot the cub, he feeds the cub some maple sugar and carries the cub home.

The cub turned out to just love being with people . . . and making messes. The bear drank the milk meant for the calves, ate the mash meant for the chickens, chomped down the apples in the orchard, scarfed the pancakes on Sunday morning that the famiy wanted to eat, tore up the kitchen looking for food, wallowed around in Mr. McCarroll's cornfield, consumed the bacons and hams in the Pennell's smokehouse, and emptied the McLeans' sap buckets before drinking their maple syrup.

All the men came to talk with Johnny's father. The conclusion was that "the bear would have to go back to the woods." Johnny tried three times to lead the bear away (which by now was enormous from all the good eating), and each time the bear soon returned . . . even when stranded on an island in a lake.

Johnny was told to solve the problem permanently, and heads sadly off into the woods with his gun and the bear. While there, the bear smells syrup and runs off. Both the bear and Johnny fall into a bear trap. A zoo is looking for a bear to exhibit. They gladly take the bear, release Johnny, and let Johnny know he can visit.

Saved in the nick of time!

The story will likely require some context for your child to understand it. People probably don't carry guns around in your neighborhood, and hunting may also be an infrequent occurrence. This book depicts a rural community where guns seem to be almost as common as pitchforks. The book doesn't seem to be particularly pro or con on hunting (just indicating that almost everyone does it), so you should express your views accordingly to fill in that space in the story's background.

Notice that Johnny is actually pretty brave, independent of his reluctance to shoot. I suspect it takes more courage to carry off a bear cub than to shoot one. Who knows where the mother bear may be?

You also can use this story to discuss the pros and cons of turning wild animals into pets. Clearly, that's a bad idea with bears, and many bears are destroyed each year after becoming too fond of getting their food from campers.

I think the story has a potential asset in providing an opportunity for you and your child to discuss how else the bear problem might have been solved. You could even look up books about how bears have been successfully returned to the wild.

The book has an unusually high ratio of illustrations to words. You can take advantage of this to help your child begin to appreciate the complexities that a longer story can bring. This book, as a result, is longer than most picture books for 4-8 year olds.

As long as the hunting aspects of the story don't disturb your child, this book will be entertaining to children even younger than 4. There is a lot of humor in it about the people letting the bear run "wild" in the human-dominated part of the world. After age 6, the story will start to pale for most youngsters. They will be ready for more complicated stories.

If you have a daughter, this book may also provide the opportunity to discuss the "rites of passage" that many boys go through.

After you finish enjoying the story, I also suggest that you ask your child what people should be doing with regard to wild animals. When should they be fed, and when not? What are the pros and cons for the animals and for the people? In this way, you can help your child develop a more realistic sense of how humans interact with the natural world.

Be open to the potential joy in every moment, especially when life surprises you!

Rating:
Summary: From Bear Hunter to Bear Protector
Review: This book was awarded the Caldecott Medal as the best illustrated children's book of 1953. The Biggest Bear was illustrator Lynd Ward's first attempt to write and illustrate a children's book. You will fall in love with the rich detail and quality of the woodcuts of forest and farm scenes. The story itself will provide much food for thought about what growing up is all about. The book provides more of a context for hunting than is needed to tell the story, which is why I graded the book down one star.

Johnny Orchard's barn never had a bearskin drying on it. His grandfather always said, "Better a bear in the orchard than an Orchard in the bear." Johnny felt humiliated by what he thought was a cowardly view. He swore to kill the biggest bear anyone had ever seen. "If I ever see a bear, I'll shoot him so fast he won't know what hit him."

Johnny's chance to go hunting alone finally comes. He finds a bear cub. Rather than shoot the cub, he feeds the cub some maple sugar and carries the cub home.

The cub turned out to just love being with people . . . and making messes. The bear drank the milk meant for the calves, ate the mash meant for the chickens, chomped down the apples in the orchard, scarfed the pancakes on Sunday morning that the famiy wanted to eat, tore up the kitchen looking for food, wallowed around in Mr. McCarroll's cornfield, consumed the bacons and hams in the Pennell's smokehouse, and emptied the McLeans' sap buckets before drinking their maple syrup.

All the men came to talk with Johnny's father. The conclusion was that "the bear would have to go back to the woods." Johnny tried three times to lead the bear away (which by now was enormous from all the good eating), and each time the bear soon returned . . . even when stranded on an island in a lake.

Johnny was told to solve the problem permanently, and heads sadly off into the woods with his gun and the bear. While there, the bear smells syrup and runs off. Both the bear and Johnny fall into a bear trap. A zoo is looking for a bear to exhibit. They gladly take the bear, release Johnny, and let Johnny know he can visit.

Saved in the nick of time!

The story will likely require some context for your child to understand it. People probably don't carry guns around in your neighborhood, and hunting may also be an infrequent occurrence. This book depicts a rural community where guns seem to be almost as common as pitchforks. The book doesn't seem to be particularly pro or con on hunting (just indicating that almost everyone does it), so you should express your views accordingly to fill in that space in the story's background.

Notice that Johnny is actually pretty brave, independent of his reluctance to shoot. I suspect it takes more courage to carry off a bear cub than to shoot one. Who knows where the mother bear may be?

You also can use this story to discuss the pros and cons of turning wild animals into pets. Clearly, that's a bad idea with bears, and many bears are destroyed each year after becoming too fond of getting their food from campers.

I think the story has a potential asset in providing an opportunity for you and your child to discuss how else the bear problem might have been solved. You could even look up books about how bears have been successfully returned to the wild.

The book has an unusually high ratio of illustrations to words. You can take advantage of this to help your child begin to appreciate the complexities that a longer story can bring. This book, as a result, is longer than most picture books for 4-8 year olds.

As long as the hunting aspects of the story don't disturb your child, this book will be entertaining to children even younger than 4. There is a lot of humor in it about the people letting the bear run "wild" in the human-dominated part of the world. After age 6, the story will start to pale for most youngsters. They will be ready for more complicated stories.

If you have a daughter, this book may also provide the opportunity to discuss the "rites of passage" that many boys go through.

After you finish enjoying the story, I also suggest that you ask your child what people should be doing with regard to wild animals. When should they be fed, and when not? What are the pros and cons for the animals and for the people? In this way, you can help your child develop a more realistic sense of how humans interact with the natural world.

Be open to the potential joy in every moment, especially when life surprises you!

Rating:
Summary: A boy raises a bear to maturity and grows up himself.
Review: This children's book is about a boy living on a farm who finds a bear cub and raises him. But, the bear grows to a very large size and becomes somewhat of a pest to the neighbors. What is the boy to do? The book won the 1953 Caldecott Medal for best illustration in a book for children.

The 1998 reviewer from Alaska seems to have comments that are little too extreme. Hunting was a normal activity for families living on farms near woods in that time period. And, the boy does find a solution that allows his pet to survive. In the 1939 Pulitzer Prize winner "The Yearling" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, there was a much different ending for the wild pet! This is a nice book that children will enjoy despite the concerns of that reviewer. I'm not a hunter and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: "Will you read this to me?"
Review: You know you have a winner when your son (who doesn't really like books) asks that question.

The storyline is cute and the illustrations are nice. It is a perfect children's story.

Rating:
Summary: "Will you read this to me?"
Review: You know you have a winner when your son (who doesn't really like books) asks that question.

The storyline is cute and the illustrations are nice. It is a perfect children's story.