Another charming animal story by Thornton Burgess. This one is about a pair of young bear cubs and their early education. Their mother leads them through the forest, teaches them to be safe and stay where she puts them, and corrects them when they disobey. Mostly she allows the natural consequences of their own misbehavior stand in as sufficient punishment. I like that this book illustrates a lot of emotions and behavior young children will feel themselves. Desire to do their own thing, pride at small accomplishments, feeling unjustly treated when corrected for wrongdoing, pouting and wanting others to feel sorry for them. The little bear who does wrong even runs away from home and soon learns that he can't at all get along in the world by himself yet. He gets teased by Peter Rabbit, the blue jay, an owl and then has worse encounters with innocent folk who nonetheless teach him painful lessons when he is rude and overbearing: a porcupine and a skunk. You can guess what happens to the poor little bear cub who is relieved to at last find his mother, feeling sorely chastened by experience. He has yet one more lesson to learn from his family, though. As ever, I found the story a simple yet very entertaining read.

from the Dogear Diary ( )