Posted on: 16/01/2014
Over Christmas many of us, young and old alike, were enchanted by an advert for a well known store that told a tale of a bear and a hare. The tale was a simple but magical one, which explored essentially the strength of a good friendship, despite the obvious differences of interests or indeed in this case, of size.There are familiar themes and familiar characters in many stories that do recur and we enjoy in taking comfort in these as they pop up time and time again in stories. It struck us at this point however that perhaps the character that is most often repeated in children’s stories, especially picture books, is that of the bear.
Many children have their own bear, of course, and the teddy bear has been a popular toy now for over a hundred years, since The Washington Post famously depicted Teddy Roosevelt with a bear he refused to shoot on a hunt which started a craze for a specially shaped stuffed toy. The popularity of the bear as a symbol in turn, has helped to create infamous characters such as Rupert the Bear, Winnie Pooh and Paddington Bear which have been grown from being book characters to TV stars in their own right.
Bears are now closely associated with bedtime as we ensure our little ones have their special toy in bed with which to comfort them. Maybe our love affair with the bear draws from our innate need to feel protected and the character of many a story featuring bears is that of a ‘gentle giant’ as the characterisation of many bears in books is one which is soft, friendly and helpful, such as Big Bear in ‘Cant you Sleep Little Bear?’
Size has a big part to play in bear stories however, and often the bear plays the role of the misunderstood character, who simply wants to be friends but people are scared of them because of their size and their fearsome qualities. ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ is a wonderful exploration of this and we adore the repetitive refrain that children shout out as they go through the book of ‘We’re not scared!’ because actually, why should they be? Of course, at the end of this book, we can infer that the bear was only chasing the family because he wanted a friend as with a stooped head, he slips away, but thankfully Michael Rosen wrote a sequel to this story in the form of ‘The Bear in the Cave’ so we can see that he found some friends after all.
Other bear stories show bears acting as people, rather than living in caves, and of course we have the classic ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ where an ursine family of three are depicted at expressing outrage when an intruder breaks in and disturbs their domestic bliss. ‘Peace at Last’ is another book where bears are dressed in human clothes and the story is that which could be told through human characteristics (that of a sleepless night) but has a comedic quality to it for it being told through the eyes of bears.
There is an enduring and appealing nature about bears as book characters for children, that in our opinion, gives a ‘classic-ness’ as a feel to a story. It would appear that bears are here to stay as part of our literary heritage. Here are a few of the Literacy Tree’s favourites below:
