The Biggest Bear: A Caldecott Award Winner

I couldn't even give this away to a thrift shop - had to toss. The illustrations are beautiful and I have bought many books from my childhood to read to my grand-kids, but this story has so many outdated concepts, I don't see how anyone reads it to a young child. The idea that it is the responsibility of a young boy to lead his pet out to the woods to shoot him because he is causing mischief - how do you promote that as the solution? That being caught in a trap to be taken to a zoo (not a modern zoo with a large enclosure, but a tiny cage is illustrated) is a happy ending? How is this book getting so many stars!

Why I Choose this Book

Sniff. Sniff. This book takes me back to my childhood in a glorious rush. A beautiful childhood, by the way, filled with playing in the woods and then cuddling up with Mom and my siblings at night to get a bedtime story. The Biggest Bear was one of our often-chosen books. We all loved it so much that several years ago I think about half of our family gave each other copies for Christmas.

What I Thought about this Book

I don't have any documentation, but I think I probably cried over this book and most likely more than once. It's practically as perfect as books get. The story is short but has the ability to draw you in from the very beginning. The antics of the bear took turns making me giggle, feel horrified and dream of one day having a wild pet of my own. (That desire was eventually transferred from bear to coyote and eventually dropped altogether... Unless you consider my dream for a de-scented skunk to be relevant.)
The illustrations are also amazing. I really like how they are in brown and white. It gives the book an old feeling that matches the story perfectly. The drawings are also very detailed and I used to dream of being able to create such lovely visuals.

Conclusion

This is another one of those books that is simply amazing and I'm so thankful to authors who write like this.
Rating

I'm giving The Biggest Bear five stars and recommend it to everyone who enjoys a good story.

Stars are for the story, I ordered this in school when I was in 3rd grade. I saved it and took care of it and was able to share it with my first child. Sadly my second child destroyed the book a few years ago. I assumed I’d never find it again but of course I was wrong. Amazon for the save.
Yes the story is a bit violent but it’s also ‘real’ world stuff. People do hunt, people do skin animals and people do capture animals and put them in zoos. If any of that offends you than this isn’t the story for you. I see the story as having lots of teachable moments for parents and their kids.
I was so happy when the book arrived but I was quickly disappointed because my copy had about 8 pages that were damaged. So I would rate the product itself at 3 stars, thought it’s nice quality and made with heavy weight paper, my book was damaged.

The boy is ashamed because all the other farmers kill a lot of bears and and always have skins up drying on the sides of their barns (picture looks like a neighborhood of barns all close to each other on a road) and his family has never killed a bear. So he goes off into the woods with his gun to kill "the biggest bear". Instead he comes home with a bear cub that he raises as a pet. When the bear grows up and causes trouble on neighboring farms, he attempts to return him to the woods, but the bear keeps coming home. Finally the father tells the boy "you know what we have to do" so the boy goes off into the woods with his bear and his gun to shoot his pet bear. The bear is saved when they walk into a trap set by a zoo. The bear goes off to live in the zoo where he will have "a fine place to live" and all the food he wants and the boy can visit. The book ends with a picture of the bear standing upright reaching through the bars of his cage, "a fine place to live".

The ONLY value I can find in this book is that it's a mistake to take wild animals to raise as pets. I find the rest of the story to be warped and disturbing. And there are pictures of wild bears looking much larger than life and very fierce, or being carried dead, or looking terrified at the point of a man's rifle. I am choosing not to share this book with our kids.

I bought this book for my son. When I was a child, 50 + years ago, I had this book. I just needed to bridge an understanding with him.

This is old school. My hubby loves it because he grew up with it. Me being a first timer for it, it was a little dated in it's content and references. Not sure I'd recommend it for new little ones, but it is my hubbies favorite.

As I've sorted through the Caldecott winners, this book was not my favorite. This book most certainly is NOT timeless. It is obviously written for another generation. Shooting bears and a happy alternative of the Circus for the life of such a creature is sourly outdated. However, it has always stuck in my mind because it is a documented view about how we have changed as a culture and a society. I do think it is a valuable book for today's children to hear. It illustrates society's progression for animals just as Rosa illustrates our progress in America with race. However, it is as much of a history lesson as anything and should provide ample ground for discussion afterward.

My Grandmother used to read this book to us and our cousins. I don't know what eventually happened to that book, but I remembered it when I was doing a unit about pets with some preschool age children and knew that it would be a perfect story for them. I had to have a copy of my own again, and not just to read to them!

It's a sweet story that's hard in some places, about a boy's change of mind and heart. At first, all he wants is a bearskin on his family's barn, like all the other hunters in the valley. Then, he just wants to take care of the little bear cub that was orphaned by all that hunting. As the bear gets bigger and more destructive, he has to make some very hard decisions about what a good pet is and what a good pet owner has to do sometimes. The class was absolutely silent at the illustration where the boy has to go get his gun, but the (much happier!) solution to the problem of the Biggest Bear engaged all their minds and conversations for the rest of the afternoon!

Johnny Orchard is a young farm boy in the 1950s. He is upset because all of the neighbors have a bear skin hanging on the side of their barns. Johnny decides to take his gun and head out to the woods to shoot a bear. He soon spots a bear...a hungry baby bear. Johnny gives the bear some maple sugar from his pocket and takes him home. He convinces his parents that they should keep the bear and raise him.
Johnny and his family soon find out that a growing bear eats a huge amount of food. The bear causes all kinds of problems in the house and in the entire neighborhood. One day, Johnny's father tells him the bear has to go back to live in the woods. Each time Johnny leads the bear into the woods, the bear comes right back to Johnny's house in a day or two.
Sadly, Johnny decides he will have to shoot the biggest bear. He leads the bear out to the woods and loads his gun. Suddenly, the bear takes off running through the woods dragging Johnny behind him. The bear (and Johnny) run right into a bear trap that is baited with maple sugar.
Soon some men come running up and say they are trying to capture a bear to put in the zoo. They tell Johnny that his bear will have a good home, plenty of food and he can come visit as often as he wants to.
The bear likes his new home and Johnny visits often. There is a sign that says "Biggest Bear" at the top of his cage.

Through the years, there has been some controversy about this book. Some people say it encourages killing animals as a sport. It is disturbing to some people to see a young boy walking alone in the woods with a loaded gun on a bear hunting expedition.
I am not a hunter and I do not come from a family of hunters. Personally, I do not understand how people can have fun hunting down and killing wild animals. I do think this book provides young readers with an outstanding opportunity to see what life was like living on a farm in the 1940s. This book could also lead to a discussion on the pros and cons of hunting...and the pros and cons of capturing wild animals and putting them in the zoo.
The highlight of this book is definitely the illustrations. The paintings are magnificent and the book is worth your attention just for the illustrations alone. You can spend hours pouring over the pictures with your child and talking about how things were back in the "olden days".

This is now one of our all time favorite books. All my kids love it and its probably my sons favorite.