The Bear

Product Information

Yet he is no humourless social realist; his other works have a cornucopia of caricature, wit, and literary parody. I loved the illustrations in this book and the idea of it, but I thought the part about the bear coming in through the girl's window could be a bit frightening. When the Wind Blows (1982) confronted the trusting, optimistic Bloggs couple with the horror of nuclear war, and was praised in the House of Commons for its timeliness and originality. This is Briggs’ most playful work, full of mock footnotes, comical reversals, asides to the reader, while ‘Bogeys frequently think in … misquotations’. The film, directed by Dianne Jackson and produced by John Coates, was wordless apart from the hit song taken from it, Howard Blake's Walking in the Air, sung by St Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty.

Bear by Raymond Briggs - First Edition - 1994 - Biblio The Bear by Raymond Briggs - First Edition - 1994 - Biblio

The final page shows an already-maturing Ug, painting animals on the cave wall, and asking ‘Things WILL get better … won’t they? We build and maintain all our own systems, but we don’t charge for access, sell user information, or run ads. The National Portrait Gallery, London, holds several photographic portraits of Briggs in its permanent collection. The delicate emotional thread between the two friends is just as touching as that between a young child and an enigmatic central character that enlivens The Snowman.

The impact of these bereavements can be seen in his later books, including F ungus the Bogeyman (1977) and The Snowman (1978), which portray family relationships and loss with nuance and sensitivity. Among the fourteen illustrators with two Medals, Briggs is one of seven with one book named to the top ten (1955–2005) and also one of seven with at least one Highly Commended runner-up (1974–2002), led by Helen Oxenbury with two Medals and four HC. The hilarious and heartwarming tale of a magical friendship between a girl and a polar bear, from beloved author of The Snowman, Raymond Briggs. These books have been translated into many languages and adapted into films, stage shows and animations. The North Pole scene featuring the jolly elf was written into the story for John Coates’s TV adaptation in 1982 and struck Briggs as rather mawkish at the time.

The Bear by Raymond Briggs | Goodreads

While How To Train Your Dragon author Cowell said: "His books brought so much joy and inspired so many, touching, hilarious and heartbreaking work. Raymond Redvers Briggs was born on 18 January 1934 in Wimbledon, Surrey (now London), to Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900–1971), a milkman, and Ethel Bowyer (1895–1971), a former lady's maid-turned-housewife, who married in 1930.She hugs her mother and they later sit down to watch The Snowman as the bear walks in and heads out. The topic was inspired after Briggs watched a Panorama documentary on nuclear contingency planning, [15] and the dense format of the page was inspired by a Swiss publisher's miniature version of Father Christmas. With The Snowman being on television every single Christmas from the moment it was made until the very end of time itself, I took the opportunity to see his animation from another Briggs book for the first time.