The Biggest Bear
1952 picture book by Lynd Ward
The Biggest Bear is a children's picture book by Lynd Ward, first published in 1952. It was illustrated using casein paint, and won the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1953.
Background
The Biggest Bear was the first children's picture book for which Ward was both author and illustrator. He rendered the illustrations in casein paint.
Ward set the story in the backwoods of Northern Ontario, an area he was familiar with as his parents had taken him to Sault Ste. Marie when he was a boy so he could recover from tuberculosis. Thereafter the family summered at a lake near Echo Bay, not far from the US–Canada border.
Plot
Johnny Orchard, a young boy, is jealous because his neighbors have bear pelts hanging on their barns, so he takes a rifle and goes hunting for the biggest bear in the valley. However, when he finds only a male bear cub, he befriends him by feeding him maple sugar and brings the bear home as a pet. As he grows, the bear becomes a nuisance to Johnny's family and the neighbors due to his enormous appetite.
“The Biggest Bear” enters the record as 1952 picture book by Lynd Ward. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Biggest, Bear and picture can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Biggest Bear” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Biggest, Bear and picture provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7717877. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1952 and 1953.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Biggest Bear”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Biggest Bear primary sources, The Biggest Bear archive and Biggest research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Biggest Bear”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Biggest Bear” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.