JOURNEY OF
THE PALE BEAR
by
SUSAN FLETCHER
Genre: Middle Grade / Medieval Historical Fiction
(grades 3-7)
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Date of Publication: October 2, 2018
Paperback: October 1, 2019
Paperback: October 1, 2019
Number of Pages: 302
Scroll down for the giveaway!
A runaway boy befriends a polar bear that’s being transported from Norway to London in this lyrical and timeless adventure story about freedom, captivity, and finding a family.
Scroll down for the giveaway!
A runaway boy befriends a polar bear that’s being transported from Norway to London in this lyrical and timeless adventure story about freedom, captivity, and finding a family.The polar bear is a royal bear, a gift from the King of Norway to the King of England. The first time Arthur encounters the bear, he is shoved in her cage as payback for stealing food. Restless and deadly, the bear terrifies him. Yet, strangely, she doesn’t harm him—though she has attacked anyone else who comes near. That makes Arthur valuable to the doctor in charge of getting the bear safely to London. So Arthur, who has run away from home, finds himself taking care of a polar bear on a ship to England.
Tasked with feeding and cleaning up after the bear, Arthur’s fears slowly lessen as he begins to feel a connection to this bear, who like him, has been cut off from her family. But the journey holds many dangers, and Arthur knows his own freedom—perhaps even his life—depends on keeping the bear from harm. When pirates attack and the ship founders, Arthur must make a choice—does he do everything he can to save himself, or does he help the bear to find freedom?
Based on the real story of a polar bear that lived in the Tower of London, this timeless adventure story is also a touching account of the bond between a boy and a bear.
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ACCOLADES AND PRAISE FOR
JOURNEY OF THE PALE BEAR:
Honor Book, Golden Kite Awards, 2019
Vermont's 2019-2020 Dorothy Canfield Fisher list
2020 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award Children's Masterlist
School Library Connection highly recommended book
Junior Library Guild Selection
50 Must-Read Historical Fiction Books for Kids, bookriot.com
Vermont's 2019-2020 Dorothy Canfield Fisher list
2020 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award Children's Masterlist
School Library Connection highly recommended book
Junior Library Guild Selection
50 Must-Read Historical Fiction Books for Kids, bookriot.com
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“…a stupendous coming-of-age-tale stuffed with adventure and laced with deeper questions… A richly satisfying story saturated with color, adventure, and heart.” –Kirkus, starred review“I simply adore this novel. It has it all: gorgeous prose, fascinating history, riveting adventure. But it’s the unlikely tender friendship between a lonely boy and a polar bear that makes this a story to cherish. A lovely little miracle of a book.” –Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal-winning author of The One and Only Ivan
“I loved every single thing about this large-hearted and riveting medieval adventure.” —William Alexander, National Book Award-winning author of Goblin Secrets
Although Susan loves to write about long-ago and faraway places, she can’t bring those worlds to life without grounding them in the details of this one. To that end, she has explored lava tubes and sea caves; spent the night in a lighthouse; traveled along the Silk Road in Iran; ridden in a glider, on a camel, and on a donkey; and cut up (already dead!) baby chicks and mice for a gyrfalcon’s dinner. To research Journey of the Pale Bear, she explored the grounds of the Tower of London and went backstage at the Oregon Zoo, where, standing breathtakingly near, she watched polar bears Tasul and Conrad lip grapes from their keepers’ open palms.Journey of the Pale Bear is Susan’s 12th book, including the Dragon Chronicles series, Shadow Spinner, and Alphabet of Dreams. Collectively, her books have been translated into nine languages; accolades include a Golden Kite Honor Book, the American Library Association’s Notable Books and Best Books for Young Adults, BCCB Blue Ribbon Books, and School Library Journal’s Best Books.
Susan has an M.A. in English from the University of Michigan and taught for many years in the M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College. She lives in Bryan, Texas with her husband, historian R.J.Q. Adams, and their dog, Neville.
Between a Boy and a Bear
Guest Post by Susan Fletcher
(first featured on The Broken Tusk Blog)
It started with the bear. I had read Daniel Hahn’s The Tower Menagerie and was taken with the exotic animals that lived in the menagerie in the Tower of London, beginning in medieval times. And the animal that kept coming back to me was the bear, apparently a polar bear, a gift from the king of Norway. The thing about the bear was…they let her out of her cage! They let her swim and catch fish in the Thames River. Though I was fascinated by many of the menagerie animals—the elephant, the leopards, the porcupine—it was the bear who captured my imagination.
As part of my research I contacted the Oregon Zoo, where I met, up close, the resident brother-and-sister polar bears: Conrad and Tasul. Conrad (the male) was enormous (1500 pounds!) and had a commensurately big and goofy personality. I really fell for Conrad. But the polar bear in my book was going to be young, and young male polar bears are some of the most dangerous animals on the planet, making friendship with a boy unlikely.
I decided that my polar bear would be a female, maybe separated from her cubs, and that there would be a bit of mother-cub vibe between her and my protagonist, Arthur. In fact, without realizing it, I had already put some of that vibe in the early drafts. Right from the get-go, Arthur hums to the bear. I found out later that polar bear cubs do a sort of humming thing with their mothers. There was also an early scene where the bear reaches out a paw to make contact with Arthur. I found out later that mother polar bears do this with their cubs.
So, what about Arthur?
He is a runaway, missing his mother, of course. He is out of place in some way; he doesn’t quite fit the world in which he finds himself. He is cut off from his family, unprotected. I kept discovering echoes between Arthur and the bear. They are strangers in the world in which they find themselves. They are isolated and lonely. I imagined that both of them would long for home.
In the 13th century, people didn’t feel as we do about animal rights. I wanted Arthur to bond with the bear, but he still had to be a boy of his times. One of the challenges of the book was to believably take Arthur from a place where a wild animal in a small cage is not a moral issue…to a place where he believes that caging this bear for the rest of her life would be cruel and wrong.
And finally, I thought about all the animals I have lived with and loved since childhood: a parade of dogs and cats and birds. Somehow, without words, we understood one another. We had relationships—friendships, actually—each unique. So I tried to think, concretely, about how these friendships worked, and to bring that to the page, as well.-------------------------------------
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Win THREE AUTOGRAPHED COPIES OF JOURNEY OF THE PALE BEAR by Susan Fletcher!
OCTOBER 10-20, 2019
(U.S. Only)
VISIT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:
10/10/19 | Excerpt | |
10/10/19 | Excerpt | |
10/11/19 | Review | |
10/12/19 | Guest Post | |
10/12/19 | Author Interview | |
10/13/19 | Review | |
10/14/19 | Review | |
10/15/19 | Guest Post | |
10/15/19 | Deleted Scene | |
10/16/19 | Review | |
10/17/19 | Review | |
10/18/19 | Guest Post | |
10/18/19 | Scrapbook | |
10/19/19 | Review | |
10/19/19 | Review |
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