Product Description

Johnny Orchard brings home a playful bear cub that soon becomes huge and a nuisance to the neighbors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #656587 in Books
• Published on: 1988-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette
• 1 pages

Review
"Some of his best pictures supplement the story . . . An outstanding book in every way." (Horn Book Guide )

Ingram
Johnny Orchard brings home a playful bear cub that soon becomes a nuisance tothe neighbors. Caldecott Medal Winner.

About the Author
Lynd Ward is a contributor for Houghton Mifflin Company titles including: 'The Silver Pony','The Biggest Bear','America's Paul Revere'

Customer Reviews

"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.

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.

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!