The Ice Bear

Gr 1—4—The stunning, large-scale polar bear's face on the cover beckons readers to pick up this book. Unfolding in lyrical language, the magical tale is set at the beginning of time "when people and animals lived together on earth and there was no difference between them." It tells of a polar bear cub stolen from his mother by Raven and rescued in the frozen wilderness by an Inuit hunter whose sled dogs carry him home. The hunter and his wife discover the fur-wrapped bundle to be a child, whom they lovingly raise. Seven years later, following a trail of precious amber cunningly deposited by Raven across the great Arctic snowpack, the child becomes lost, but he is rescued by a pack of polar bears that carries him to his polar bear mother. The bereft Inuit father searches for and finds his child, who now finds himself torn between his animal family and the humans who raised him. A compromise is reached: the child will live with the bears through the winter and with the people all summer, teaching them the wisdom of the bears. Pair this beautifully illustrated, mystic Arctic/Inuit story with a straightforward account of global warming's threat to the polar bear for a thoughtful illumination of humankind's need to live in harmony with nature.—Kathleen Finn, St. Francis Xavier School, Winooski, VT