The Bear That Wasn’t

First published in 1946, “The Bear that Wasn’t”, written by the famed American animator, cartoonist, screenwriter, and film director Frank Tashlin, is a clever and entertaining children’s tale of a bear and mistaken identity. Tashlin, born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, in Weehawken, New Jersey in 1913, directed and supervised many Looney Tunes cartoons before he found fame as a motion picture director. “The Bear that Wasn’t” was the first of his three children’s books and is the humorous tale of a bear who has awakened from hibernating to find that the world around him has utterly transformed into an industrial city of the future. He is mistaken for a lazy worker and ordered to get back to his job in the factory. No matter how often he insists that he is indeed a bear, he is told by one boss after another that is only a “silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat”. Bear knows who he really is though and, in the end, finds his way back to the life he was meant to live. This children’s classic will delight children and parents alike with its satirical depiction of corporate culture and its timeless message of accepting yourself as who you are. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.