Review of A Bear Far from Home

A Bear Far from Home A Bear Far from Home
by Susan Fletcher ; illus. by Rebecca Green
Primary     Schwartz/Random    40 pp.       g
9/22     978-0-593-18189-8     $18.99
Library ed.  978-0-593-18190-4    $21.99
e-book ed.  978-0-593-18191-1    $11.99

Fact: “King Haakon IV of Norway gave Henry III of England a white bear, which went to live in the Tower of London in 1251 or 1252.” Little else is known other than that King Henry decreed that the creature should be tethered and let out of its cage every day to swim and fish in the Thames. Fletcher, who has previously written about this unusual piece of history in her middle-grade novel Journey of the Pale Bear , can only speculate about the bear’s exact species (she chose a polar bear, indigenous to Norway), gender (female), fate (why the king allowed it to go outside), and feelings (finding home again in the river). The text is clear about what are educated guesses (“imagine how the world must have seemed”; “we’ll never know for sure”) and “what we do know.” Green’s rich-hued gouache and colored-pencil illustrations, featuring gold-framed panels and ornamentation, were inspired by early medieval illustrations, and they arguably steal the show here, providing a real sense of place and time. She also skillfully varies colors and perspectives within her decorative panels and realistically depicts the bear’s movements and expressions, all of which help convey the emotions the bear might have experienced on her journey back to the water. Back matter gives information and bibliographies not only about the bear but also about the exotic-animals menagerie that used to exist at the Tower of London.

From the November/December 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

Be the first reader to comment.

Comment Policy:
  • Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
  • Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
  • Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
  • Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
  • If you see something objectionable, please let us know. Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.


RELATED 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?
https://www.hbook.com/story/review-of-a-bear-far-from-home-nov22
www.hbook.com
CC-MAIN-2023-40
150028
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:LJDPXBWHSWZWQFWL3GGGAFPUQX2ZQXFG
<urn:uuid:52460257-cbc4-4b96-bd21-c9fb50a06202>
2023-09-28T15:22:35Z
18.211.154.94
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:O6PUEW67CAKTABXJZH5WCNGZND5ZO4ER
<urn:uuid:023873f6-20d3-4a44-9874-4055cefcb42f>
https://www.hbook.com/story/review-of-a-bear-far-from-home-nov22
response
<urn:uuid:33ad49dc-caae-4319-86bd-2649b11d5946>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2023-40
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September/October 2023
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-97
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.5-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/