The Bear: A Novel Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00IA8YTMY | Format: EPUB
The Bear: A Novel Description
A powerful suspense story narrated by a young girl who must fend for herself and her little brother after a brutal bear attack.
While camping with her family on a remote island, five-year-old Anna awakes in the night to the sound of her mother screaming. A rogue black bear, three hundred pounds of fury, is attacking the family's campsite -- and pouncing on her parents as prey.
At her dying mother's faint urging, Anna manages to get her brother into the family's canoe and paddle away. But when the canoe runs aground on the edge of the woods, the sister and brother must battle hunger, the elements, and a wilderness alive with danger. Lost and completely alone, they find that their only hope resides in Anna's heartbreaking love for her family, and her struggle to be brave when nothing in her world seems safe anymore.
This is a story with a small narrator and a big heart. Cameron gracefully plumbs Anna's young perspective on family, responsibility, and hope, charting both a tragically premature loss of innocence and a startling evolution as Anna reasons through the impossible situations that confront her.
Lean and confident, and told in the innocent and honest voice of a five-year-old, The Bear is a transporting tale of loss -- but also a poignant and surprisingly funny adventure about love and the raw instincts that enable us to survive.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 6 hours and 22 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: February 11, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00IA8YTMY
Amazon.com Prime delivered the book yesterday on Thursday afternoon, and I started to read it in bed that night. After several hours of non-stop reading, I was over a half way through when I reluctantly put it on my nightstand and fell asleep. I finished the book this morning. There was no way I could begin my day until I found out what happened to Anna and Stick.
The Bear by Claire Cameron is a novel unlike anything I have ever read before—and I read—a lot. I was completely carried away by the story and caught up in the narrator’s innocent, brave, tragic, hopeful, and at times surprisingly funny perspective on a horrific journey of loss and love.
When I read a review for The Bear in People magazine this past week, I was immediately intrigued. Written in a first-person POV of a 5-year-old girl and her 2-year-old brother, escaping a bear attack and wandering in the woods alone. Seriously? How on earth would this author pull off such a fete and make me believe the narrator—and the story? Yet make me believe it, she did.
Yes, the storyline is a bit dark and uncomfortable. It's a novel based on an actual bear attack in 1991 on a wilderness island northeast of Toronto. A brutal attack that killed two campers—a young couple—and stunned the nation. The author worked as a counselor at a nearby summer camp at the time, and her novel is based on her memories of and research into this bear attack.
In asking and effectively answering the “What if?" questions, as in, “What if this happened to a young family on a camping trip…” and “What if there were young children involved?” Cameron has written not only a powerful suspense story, but a story of heartbreaking love, and inspiring hope. It's an evocative and powerful story destined to hit the bestseller lists.
I love to read. And I read a lot. I only choose books I know I'm going to enjoy. But every so often, there's that book that goes beyond that enjoyment feeling - one that absolutely grabs you, has you tingling with anticipation knowing there's an amazing story just waiting within the pages, one that you can't wait to tell others about.
Well, I'm telling you - The Bear by Claire Cameron is one of those books. I literally could not put it down. Twenty pages in, I just knew I wasn't going to bed early that night.
In October of 1991, a pair of campers was attacked by a bear in Algonquin Park, Canada. "There is no clear reason for what happened other than a hungry bear decided to take a chance on a new source of food." Author Cameron was a counsellor at a summer camp at Algonquin that year as well. "The Bear is based on my memories of and research into this bear attack. I added the kids."
Yes, kids. The Bear is told through the eyes and voice of five year old Anna. She and her two year old brother Stick, are the survivors of an attack that kills their parents - and leaves them alone in the vast wilderness that is Algonquin.
As adults, we know what is happening and what they should do, but Anna is only five and has limited skills, knowledge and experience to draw on. It is frightening and heartbreaking to imagine this truly happening - the confusion, the questions, the fear and the loss. Cameron does a truly fantastic job of bringing this to the page with Anna's voice. Through her memories, thoughts and senses (smell and touch are very important to Anna) we come to know the children, the family's life, the parents and their love for Anna and Stick. Anna draws on her memories time and time again as she struggles with what to do.
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