The Large and Growly Bear by Gertrude Crampton, 1961.

One spring day, a large and growly bear is bored.  What else can a large and growly bear do but find someone to scare with his growling?  But, finding someone to scare proves harder than he thought it would be.

As the bear goes through the forest, trying to scare different types of animals, he discovers that they’re all too busy to be frightened of his growling.  The birds are busy feeding their babies, the rabbits are busy jumping around and counting their bounces, and the moles are busy digging tunnels halfway to China. All of them tell the bear to go find someone else to scare.

Eventually, he gets the idea of trying to scare the fish because fish just swim around and aren’t too busy to be scared, but when he gets to the river, he’s in for a big surprise! The easiest target to scare is . . . himself!

My Reaction

This is just a cute story that my brother really liked as a kid. It has repetition that kids like as the bear repeatedly tries to frighten different types of animals with the same disappointing result, and then a funny twist ending when it turns out the only animal who even has the time to be frightened by the bear is himself.  It’s a Little Golden Book.