By Dave Shiflett

A world bereft of an academic appraisal of celebrity bears would somehow seem deficient, so a growl of appreciation is due Daniel Horowitz, whose "Bear With Me" tells us tons about Teddy, Smokey, Pooh, Paddington and even the dreadful Berenstains.

Mr. Horowitz, a professor emeritus of American studies at Smith College and a prolific author, tells us early on that bears appear in the Bible maybe 14 times while lions, sheep and goats get hundreds of mentions. But as the years passed bears came on strong, inspiring Michael Bond's Paddington Bear, A.A. Milne's Pooh and William Faulkner's Old Ben. Bears also caught the eye of guys who knew how to make the truly big bucks, including stuffed-animal entrepreneurs, P.T. Barnum and Walt Disney.

Bear superstars get plenty of ink. The ubiquitous Teddy, for instance, was created out of a marriage of mercy and capitalist enthusiasm. The story began when Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear during a 1902 Mississippi hunt (his guide was a former slave named Holt Collier, who had been a Confederate scout). T.R. blasted plenty of animals but killing this bear, which Collier had subdued and tied to a tree, would have been more an execution than a legitimate act of killing for sport.

The press initially mauled the president for his refusal to dispatch the animal (it appears Collier might have later done the deed with a knife) but in the wilds of Brooklyn, N.Y., a Jewish immigrant couple saw an opportunity and created a stuffed "Teddy's Bear" they displayed in their candy-store window. Roosevelt reportedly approved their request to use his name to market the stuffed bears (other manufacturers soon followed suit) and the rest is history.

Some human-bear relationships got off to even rockier starts. Hugh Glass, who was attacked by a grizzly in 1823 and allegedly crawled 200 miles for help, inspired several books in his day and at least two films in ours, including "The Revenant" (2015). John "Grizzly" Adams, a mid-19th-century member of the Adams family (which also produced two U.S. presidents) was mauled early on yet eventually came to consider grizzlies his "faithful friends" -- and income streams. He joined forces with Barnum, who later wrote about a bear-wrestling exhibition in Mariposa, Calif., that netted Adams $800 -- real money back then. Adams's storied life, which may have been cut short by complications from his earlier injuries, would feather many Hollywood nests.

Mr. Horowitz wags an academic tongue, noting that Teddy Bears eventually transitioned, in some quarters at least, from "stuffed animals resting next to a child" to "objects of critical assessments through their association with imperialism and the patriarchy." He lashes Rudyard Kipling for the author's "imperial colonizer" instincts, though Mr. Horowitz adds that Baloo, the bear in Kipling's "Jungle Book" (1894), was a wise teacher who, in Walt Disney's devious hands, "echoed American racial stereotypes." In a similar spirit, Uncle Remus and his tales of Brer Bear, from the late-19th-century folktales created by Joel Chandler Harris, "confirmed an image of black inferiority many whites needed," according to the writer Julius Lester. When viewed through enlightened eyes, Mr. Horowitz tells us, "bear narratives illuminate issues of gender, race, and imperialism."

Readers who would rather hear about Paddington than the patriarchy may experience intense eye-rolling from time to time. Yet Mr. Horowitz also provides interesting bear facts: Some can run up to 30 miles an hour; and while grizzlies can kill you, attacks are rare. In one 90-year stretch at Glacier National Park in Montana, the author writes, nine people died from bear attacks while 48 drowned, 23 fell from cliffs and 26 perished in auto accidents.

Yet some bears are constant nuisances, and not simply due to a love of dumpster diving. Exhibit A: The Berenstains.

Stan Berenstain and Janice Grant wrote the instructional parenting book "Have a Baby, My Wife Just Had a Cigar" (1960) before becoming bear authors, helped along by Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, who at the time was working as an editor at Random House. Geisel, a man of his times, suggested Uncle Remus as a model for a new animal-based series. The world was soon up to its nose in Berenstains: As Mr. Horowitz tells us, there are now more than 300 books about the Berenstain family, with over 260 million copies sold since 1962.

A resistance of sorts eventually formed. Mr. Horowitz generously quotes Charles Krauthammer on the dreadfulness unleashed by this clan of "lumbering cuddlies." Mama Bear is "the final flowering of the grade-school prissy" while Papa Bear is "the Alan Alda of grizzlies, a wimp so passive and fumbling he makes Dagwood Bumstead look like Batman." Many readers may be tearfully reminded of how much we miss Charles Krauthammer.

Mr. Horowitz finds time for Yogi Bear, who originated in 1958; the Gummi Bears, who came along in 1985; Fozzie Bear from the Muppets; and Garfield's Pooky. We also meet bears recruited for environmental causes, including Smokey, the arch-foe of forest fires, and Bi-Polar Bear, from the animated web series Queer Duck, who is part of what Mr. Horowitz describes as a "gay bear subculture" whose members are "hairy, hefty, and aging."

We may even experience a provoked thought, perhaps while contemplating Mr. Horowitz's wariness of "cultural appropriation." If authors should only write from perspectives reflecting their gender, race, sexual and other dispositions, shouldn't "Winnie-the-Pooh" have been written, or at least co-written, by a bear? Perhaps a question to give us legitimate paws.

--Mr. Shiflett reviews frequently for the Journal and posts his original music and writing at Daveshiflett.com.

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August 19, 2025 14:13 ET (18:13 GMT)

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