Release date is 2025-10-13

Richard Tonsing, Mairi, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

The adventures of Twinkly Eyes the little Black Bear by Allen Chaffee is a children’s nature adventure written in the early 20th century. The story follows a lively black bear cub named Twinkly Eyes (and his brother Woof) as he learns survival skills in the woods through playful mishaps and close calls. Episodic encounters with porcupines, snakes, storms, bees, rabbits, a lynx, and even a curious farm boy mix humor with gentle peril, while slipping in simple natural-history lessons. It’s a warm, instructive woodland romp designed to nurture empathy for wildlife. The opening of the story shows Twinkly shoved into a lake by his brother, rescued by their watchful mother, and hastily taught to swim—and to climb—when a black snake slithers near and a prickly porcupine family commandeers their pond and tree. A thunderstorm brings practical guidance about sheltering among safer trees, while Mother Bear warns that lightning and men with guns are the true dangers. As seasons turn, Twinkly grows bolder: he’s misled by a jay toward squirrel nests, then braves a bee tree for honey, gets badly stung, falls, and cools the swelling with clay before dozing off satisfied. He spies the secretive Cottontail clan (and later their moonlit “bunny ball”), tries to ambush a rabbit but falls asleep, and narrowly evades a fox alert. A meeting with a farm boy ends with Twinkly stealing a trout and outwitting an attempted treetop capture, while Mother Bear coolly teaches new cubs to fish. Further episodes include mistaking a wasp nest for a bee trove despite a porcupine’s warning and a young lynx learning the hard way why porcupine quills demand respect. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Springfield: Milton Bradley Company, 1919