Ward, L. (1952). The biggest bear. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
"The Biggest Bear" is a picture storybook that tells the story of a little boy and his "pet bear."  This book received The Caldecott Medal in 1953.

Little Johnny Orchard lived on a farm, close to the woods.  Almost every barn in his valley had a bearskin, except for his.  His grandfather passed on a bear at one point and Little Johnny felt humiliated.  He was so humiliated that he vowed to shoot his own bear so that he could place a bearskin on the barn.

On the day that he goes out to get his bear, he finds one, but it is a cub, a cub that really likes his maple sugar.  He takes the bear cub home and keeps it as a pet.  The bear grows and grows until finally, it is the biggest bear around, and also the biggest nuisance around.  The father and Little Johnny decide there is only one thing to do.

At this point, my first grade son was reading the story to me and I literally had to close the book because I was so afraid of what was going to happen.  He insisted that he go on because he already had his own idea of what was going to take place.  His foreshadowing was correct, the bear was his pet and he would find a way to keep him.


The pictures in this book were realistic art and they were all in black and white.  The illustrations really complimented the text (they had my 7 year old son cracking up).  The plot had points that were conveyed through illustrations even when they weren't present in the text.

Honestly, after reading this book with my son, I don't think that it would be something I would use in my classroom, simply because I teach kindergarten.  I am a pet lover myself, and being the owner of two (indoor) Great Danes, I was in tears at the thought of what Little Johnny was going to do to this bear.  Although, you could do an activity with foreshadowing because that is exactly what my son did when I said he couldn't read the rest :).