In the deep, green woods, in a cozy little cave, lived Benny Bear. Benny was a brown cub with little glasses. He loved to play, he loved to read, he loved to bake chocolate chip and honey cookies with Momma bear, but most of all he loved to draw. Benny Bear lived with Momma Bear, and they were happier than two cubs in a honey shop.

Every day, Benny Bear went outside of his cave, and he drew everything he saw. He drew the creek that ran by his cave home, he drew the trees and the mushrooms that grew on them, and he drew Mrs. Bluebird feeding her babies in their nest. He would show his momma his drawings, and she would smile with pride at each one saying, “Another masterpiece from my little artist.”

One day, Momma Bear took Benny Bear to the library to check out a book. While Momma looked at cookbooks, Benny wandered over to another shelf. As he looked through all the books, one caught his eye. He adjusted his glasses and looked at the title.

“Art: Drawing and Pictures,” he read the title aloud.

He pulled the book off the shelf and rushed over to the librarian’s desk. An old, brown owl stood behind the desk.

“You’ll have a HOOT reading this,” the librarian owl said before stamping the book and giving it to Benny.

Benny was amazed by all the beautiful drawings in the books. After looking through each incredibly drawn picture, Benny had a thought. I bet I could draw pictures like these! So Benny got to work drawing.

The first picture he drew was a tree. Benny flipped through the art book until he found a page with a few tree drawings. He compared his drawings to those in the book. He frowned; his picture looked nothing like the ones in the book.

“I never really liked drawing trees anyway,” he said, crumpling up his drawing. He kept drawing and coloring. He drew fish, he drew mountains, he drew bugs, and birds, but Benny threw each drawing in the trash. None of them looked any good compared to the drawings the book had.

“All of these are terrible. I’ll never be any good at drawing!” He shouted. He took all of his drawings and threw them into the trash. He ripped each one off his wall and even chucked his pencils into the trash. He stormed out of the cave before Momma could stop him, leaving her worried for her little cub. After watching the frogs play in the creek for a while, Benny trudged back into the cave.

What he saw took his breath away. Each one of his drawings that he had crumpled up and thrown away were hanging in picture frames all around the house. Just like an art museum, Benny thought. Momma stood there smiling at Benny.