Finding Bear

Hannah Gold

Levi Pinfold

HarperCollins GB., 2024

352pp., hbk., RRP $A19.99

9780008582012

When her mother is killed in a car crash, April’s scientist father retreats onto himself as he tries to deal with his grief and becomes the epitome of the absent-minded professor, leaving11-year-pld April to pretty much fend for herself.  So when he tells her he has applied to man the weather station on remote Bear Island in the Arctic Circle and they will be there alone for six months over the northern summer, April sees it as a chance to reconnect with her dad and start to build a new relationship with him.

However, things don’t work out that way with her dad becoming more and more withdrawn, leaving April to explore the island and entertain herself all day and all night as the sun does not set at this time of the year. Although she has been told that once polar bears roamed the island freely, because of climate change and the melting of the sea ice, there are now no bears left,  one evening, on the horizon, silhouetted against the sun , something moves. Something big and loping and gone in the blink of an eye but a polar bear, nonetheless. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life…

Now, in this sequel to that compelling story of The Last Bear, April , who is not having an easy time trying to fit into school and all that that entails, returns to Svalbard after hearing that a polar bear has been shot and injured and she is convinced it is her special friend. As they begin an unforgettable journey across frozen tundra and icy glaciers. they discover a tiny polar bear cub, desperately in need of April’s  help. In freezing temperatures, she must navigate the dangerous Arctic terrain and face her deepest fears if she’s to save him, particularly as it means dealing with someone who is willing to shoot every polar bear on sight.

As with the first one, as well as bringing environmental issues to the fore, it also deals with some bigger issues as April has to learn to navigate and cope with her new relationship with her father as well as his new relationship with her principal.  There are echoes of this in the relationship between Bear and his cub and so, again, April is able to learn much about herself as she does about wild life and humanity’s impact on it, but there are also echoes of the relationship for the reader who may also be watching their own family dynamics transition, not only in terms of new partners coming in but also their own developing maturity and independence.

The Last Bear was such a compelling read that those who enjoyed it will want to follow up what happened next for April, her dad and the bear; while for those who haven’t read the first, this is a wonderful duo that will absorb them for days.