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Clem the Detective Dog
Ralphie The Gopher
Sheriff Daisy & Deputy Bud
Rainbow of the Sioux
The Monotonia Chronicles
Tibbodnock Stories
Fiona the Smart Ghost
Ivan the Not-So-Terrible
Nikki the Invisible Girl
Sarabel to the Rescue

Storytelling Tip No 2: Throw in Another Bear

Listen to Storytelling Tip No 2 or read it below:

Tall Tales Audio presents: Storytelling tips with Jake Warner. Each episode, Jake will provide another tip for improving your storytelling skills. Then, he’ll tell a story using that tip. This week’s tip: Throw in Another Bear.

Rich: Jake, that sounds intriguing – throw in another bear – but what does that mean?

Jake: Every storyteller has a moment when their story’s dragging; maybe you’re telling a story to a couple kids or a couple grandkids and you think, “Gee, is their attention wandering a little bit? Is this not a great story? What’s going on here?” And that’s where I always come back to my rule: Throw in another bear; make it a little bit more exciting. It kind of goes back to the notion… say you’re telling a bear story, and somehow the audience is not quite with you. Hey, throw in another bear, throw in a bigger bear, throw in two bears… and you can extrapolate that rule in all kinds of directions. One thing that kids really love, that I think everybody loves (adults and everybody else), is a moment of excitement and adventure. So, if it starts to drag a little bit, toss in another bear!

Rich: Okay, Jake. Let’s hear you use that tip in a story.

Jake: A Bear and a Half: It was the last week of summer vacation, when the three best friends, Evan, Shane, and DeShawn, who were all thirteen years old, asked their parents if they could go camping – with no adults. Since all three had lots of experience in the woods, their parents talked, called, and worried back and forth, but finally, the three boys got the okay: They could go out in the woods by themselves, but just for one night.

On the way up to the trail that the boys would follow up to the campground on the other side at Big Bald Abode, Evan’s dad went over safety rules – three times, very carefully, especially the importance of putting all their food in a sack and hanging it from the end of a branch so that the bears couldn’t get it. Now, the black bears that lived around there aren’t nearly as dangerous as grizzly bears that live way up North, but still, they’re big, strong animals with teeth and claws, and you want to steer clear of them.

As you can imagine, the three boys had a great time hiking up to the campground, even though Evan’s pack seemed to be so heavy that he lagged pretty far behind. After fooling around in the woods for a few hours, the boys cooked a delicious dinner of noodles flavored with freeze-dried beef. For dessert, they had chocolate pudding topped off with a Milky Way bar. Then, as it began to get dark, the boys remembered what Evan’s dad had said about the bears, and put the extra food in two sleeping bag stuff-sacks. They then tied a rock to the end of a long piece of cord, and tossed it over a thin, high branch. After tying each end of the rope to a food sack, they worked hard to balance both sacks high enough above their heads so that a bear couldn’t reach them. Then, the boys sat down around the fire, and told scary stories – some of them about great … big …bears.

Finally, when it got very late, the boys got some water from a nearby stream, put out the fire carefully – that was another one of the safety tips – and rolled up in their sleeping bags. There was no reason to set up a tent, since the weather was predicted to be clear for the next week. All was cozy and peaceful until Shane was awakened by something pulling and tugging at the bottom of his sleeping bag – right at the spot where he had hidden three Milky Way bars, in case he got hungry during the night. Sitting up sleepily, Shane was jolted wide awake when he saw that a huge black bear had the bottom of his sleeping bag in his mouth. In fact, Shane was so scared that he couldn’t move – but he had to do something, so he yelled, “Evan, DeShawn, you guys, wake up, wake up! Help me, help me! There’s a bear… there’s a bear trying to eat me! Please wake up, please! Now! Help me!” As DeShawn mumbled something, rolled over, and began to wake up, the bear tugged even harder at Shane’s sleeping bag – so hard, in fact, that Shane was now half out of it. “Help, help!” Shane yelled again as he grabbed the top of the bag and tried to pull it back away from the bear. By this time, DeShawn had finally climbed out of his sleeping bag, and had begun banging a spoon on a pot and yelling, “Bad bear, bad bear! Get away, get away!” But DeShawn’s yelling and banging only seemed to encourage the bear, who now growled louder, and louder, and pulled harder and harder at the sleeping bag. Shane was so scared, he was just about to pee in his underpants. That was when Shane noticed something odd – the bear was laughing, and so was DeShawn, who had stopped banging on the pot. In fact, now the bear was giggling so hard it had let go of the sleeping bag and rolled over on it’s back. Okay, okay, by now you’ve surely guessed that the bear wasn’t really a bear at all, but only Evan dressed in the bear suit he had carried up the mountain in his super-heavy pack. And since Shane was well-known for hiding candy bars in his sleeping bag, Evan and DeShawn were pretty sure he would fall for the trick, which, of course, is just what he did.

By this time, it was almost morning, so the three wide-awake boys decided to make a fire and cook an early breakfast. But since there wasn’t enough wood, they split up and headed into the forest to collect some more. Evan, who was still wearing his bear suit with the head flipped back so he could see, headed south. He had picked up about ten sticks and a small log and was about to retrace his steps back to camp, when he heard a growl right behind him… just a low growl. He was sure that it was Shane trying to fool him, so he ignored it. But then the growl came again – louder. Evan said, “Shane, I’m not that easy to fool,” as he bent over to pick up another stick. That’s when the growl came again – this time much, much, much louder. Deciding the time had come to bust Shane, Evan spun around. But in the light of his flashlight, Evan saw that instead of one of his best buddies, the growl had really come from a big, big black bear. A bear that was standing on its hind legs with it’s nose about six inches from him. Realizing that he couldn’t run away in the floppy bear suit, Evan had no clue what to do. But then, as the bear opened it’s big, toothy, slobbery mouth to growl again, Evan had an idea. Stretching back and pulling the cloth bear head over his own head, he raised his arms over his own head and roared. When the real bear didn’t move, Evan roared again way louder. This seemed to annoy the bear, who reached out his paw and pushed Evan just hard enough that he lost his balance and sat down on his bum, dropping the flashlight. By the time Evan picked it up and pointed it to where the bear had been standing, the big animal had disappeared.

Later, around the campfire, after Shane and DeShawn had told fantastic made-up bear stories, Evan told what happened to him, swearing every word was true. “Yeah, right,” said DeShawn. “Unlikely story… I thought you could do better than that,” said Shane.

Rich: Jake, in your story, DeShawn yells at the bear. Does a storyteller have to be careful about giving advice like that to kids?

Jake: Well, actually, with black bears, the kind of bears we’re talking about here, the best thing you can do is yell at the bear, and bang a pot. So, he’s done exactly the right thing. These bears are not bears that will attack you, but if you’re in a campsite and suddenly one shows up and wants the peanut butter and bread, you definitely want to keep your distance, but you want to make a lot of noise and use whatever you can to get the bear to head out. Eventually, they will; just don’t get too close to the bear.

Rich: And I noticed you also incorporated a lot of other safety tips.

Jake: Yeah, and you know, thirteen is just at that age where you might let a kid try it on their own if they’ve had a lot of training. My kids were in the woods with me when they were babies, and four or five, and eight or ten, so they were very competent by that age, but safety’s important, and you just ingrain it from the beginning and it becomes automatic, so you can put it in a story.

For more storytelling tips, check out TallTalesAudio.com, where you can also purchase CDs and downloadable tales from our collection of original children’s’ stories.

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