A Cross Bear Trivia Quiz

Answer: Baloo

Baloo was created by Rudyard Kipling in a series of stories that were first published in magazines in 1893-94 before becoming the books "The Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book". Baloo, a sloth bear, and Bagheera, a black panther, save the man child Mowgli from the tiger Shere Khan. They then teach Mowgli the Law of the Jungle. Kipling used the stories as morality tales to teach moral lessons.

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Answer: Mr. Edward Bear

Mr. Ed is the famous talking horse and is very similar to Mr. Edward Bear. The poem was entitled "Teddy Bear" and one of the illustrations of this poem showed Mr. Edward Bear, aka Pooh, wearing a shirt that was colored red in a reproduction. It is this picture that Disney used in its adaptations of the stories and would become synonymous with Pooh. The book "Winnie-the-Pooh" follows Pooh's adventures with such characters as Tigger and Piglet in the Hundred Acre Woods. This book was followed up in 1928 with "The House at Pooh Corner".

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Answer: J. R. R. Tolkien

"The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" is Tolkien's first story about the world of hobbits. It was much more of a children's story and "Lord of the Rings" started out as a mere sequel but grew into something much much larger. Beorn aided Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves in their quest to regain the dwarves' kingdom. In his bear form he arrived just in time to deliver the decisive blow in the Battle of Five Armies.

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Answer: Paddington Bear

Our hero is named after Paddington Station in London, where the Browns find him with a note reading "Please look after this bear." They do, and they're richly rewarded: Paddington is polite, gentle and fascinating, with interesting stories and a love of cocoa and marmalade. Of course, he does get into a lot of trouble, despite "try[ing] so hard to get things right" -- but what would children's literature be without some misadventures?

Paddington Bear was created by Michael Bond and first appeared in "A Bear Called Paddington" in 1958. The bear was instantly popular and went on to appear in a dozen more books by 1980.

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Answer: Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman wrote his famous trilogy "His Dark Materials" beginning in 1995 with "Northern Lights" (or "The Golden Compass" in North America). That was followed by "The Subtle Knife" (1997), and "The Amber Spyglass" (2000).

King Iorek Byrnison is a Panserbjørne, armored bear in Norwegian. He is a comrade and friend to the heroine of the trilogy, Lyra Belacqua, and to Lee Scoresby. Lyra helps Iorek regain his throne over the armored bears by tricking Iofur Raknison.

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Answer: Anton Chekhov

Bear is an insult thrown at one of the protagonists (Smirnov) in the play that leads to a challenge to a duel between Smirnov and the widow Elena Popova. Smirnov had previously called on the widow to seek payment of a debt that her late husband owed him. Inspired by her audacity to accept the challenge Smirnov finds himself falling for the widow.
("Uncle Vanya" is one of Chekhov's more noted works).

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Answer: Corduroy

The endearing Corduroy -- one strap of his overalls flapping without the missing button -- was introduced to the world by Don Freeman in 1968's "Corduroy." Corduroy goes on his quest after a little girl, Lisa, is told by her mother that she can't buy him at the department store because he doesn't have all his buttons. He doesn't quite succeed, but Lisa buys him the next day anyway, and gives him a button of his own. A sequel ("A Pocket for Corduroy") followed ten years later, but Freeman died before he could write more adventures; subsequent Corduroy books have been written by other authors.

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Answer: Go Down, Moses

"Go Down, Moses" is seven related short stories put together in one book. Isaac McCaslin, "Uncle Ike", is the unifying voice throughout the stories. In "The Bear", Isaac and his friends become obsessed with hunting Old Ben, an almost mythical bear who seems immortal in his ability to cheat death. The story was actually first published in "The Saturday Evening Post" but that version differs greatly from the version found in "Go Down, Moses". A third version appeared in "Big Woods", another collection of short stories.

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Answer: The Waste Lands

To say that Shardik is a massive bear is almost a falsehood. Yes he is huge but he is also a bear shaped cyborg built by North Central Positronics, an operation that plays a strong role in the series. There are six beams that support the Dark Tower with a Guardian placed at each end. The Guardians, in Roland's youth, had attained a status that bordered on being mythical. When Roland and his team first meet Shardik, the bear is several thousand years old, full of parasites and dying. Little wonder he was a cross bear. In a crazed state he launches an attack on Roland's crew and is killed in the encounter.

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Answer: Br'er Bear

The Uncle Remus stories have been compared to Aesop's fables in that they are didactic, meaning they are meant to instruct and not merely entertain. During the time they were first published, the stories were not considered racist but by the mid 20th century attitudes had changed. Uncle Remus was a kindly old slave who served as the narrator of the stories and his stereotype is now looked down upon by society. The stories focus on Br'er Rabbit and his dealings with Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. The best known adaptation of the stories is Disney's 1946 movie "Song of the South".

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