[.ca] The Biggest Bear (ISBN 080852335X)

From Bear Hunter to Bear Protector:
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!

A story about a child who must shoot and kill his friend.:
Should a father allow his young son to take a bear cub in from the wild and raise it as a pet? When the animal gets too wild and too unruly for domestic life (think of the animal hijinks of Curious George or the Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed) what solution should the parents propose? If you're the father in the book "The Biggest Bear," you take your elementary-school age son aside, give him a gun and a bullet, and tell him to do what needs to be done. So the young boy reluctantly leads his beloved pet out into the woods to shoot him to death. Only the (accidental) intervention of a group of zoo trappers saves the bear from being killed by his lifelong friend. This book was published in 1952, and won a Caldecott Award in 1953 for excellence in pictoral illustration. The black and white drawings are well done -- one well-drawn and realistic image shows a local man grinning with pride as he carries the lifeless carcass of a freshly-killed bear back to his barn to be skinned. If you live in a frontier town bordering on a large forest, you may value this book as a cautionary tale to remind your children of the extreme foolishness of trying to feed or domesticate wild animals, and the importance of taking responsibility for your own decisions. A father with judgement this poor would never survive as a real-life hunter, trapper, or farmer. Real people who make their living in the wild have a healthy respect for nature. And a good father would never force his young son to endure the consequences of the father's bad judgement. If you live in the city, the suburbs, or a developed rural area, you might want to think twice about a book where a young child is told that a gun and a bullet is the best solution to a problem. You also might find better ways to discuss the complex topics of friendship, consequences, killing, and betrayal with your children.

"Will you read this to me?":
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.

I don't know what to say- this book is awesome!:
Johnny is determined to find a bear; the BIGGEST bear, and kill it. He plans to tack the skin on the barn so everyone can see it. But when he finds a baby bear, he cannot 'bear' to kill him. The bear grows and grows until he is the biggest bear ever seen on the face of earth! Too bad his size and natural instincts get him into a lot of trouble! This is a heart-warming tale about how a boy can save his beloved bear from getting killed. I think anyone who enjoys a GOOD book should read this!

Highly Recommended:
I came online to purchase this book for my daughter and thought I would check out what this book meant to other people and was shocked by the sensitivity that is present in today's society. Having grown up being read this book 25 years ago I carry lessons from this book to this day. I haven't read it since then, listen to what I got from it: Johnny brings a wild animal into the community against the better judgement of family and neighbors. The bear is lovable but a nuisance animal and Johnny is forced to take the responsibility (shoot the bear) even though it is something he really, really doesn't want to do. (At this point I would interject, I always felt Johnny was older than I as he was allowed to carry guns. My parents always taught me to respect firearms. I was not allowed to be around guns without supervision until I was 16, even then it was only with permision.) The bear being saved by the zoo taught me that he didn't really check all of his options before trying to take care of the situation. I can still hear my mom telling me to "make sure and look into things, maybe you can figure out something better." In a nutshell, I got responsibility for my actions, do all my research to resolve problems, and wild animals are wild animals. To stick with me as long as it has, it must be entertaining and well written. I can't wait to pass it on to my little girl.