The Bear, Claire Cameron
The Bear, Claire Cameron
4 Rating(s)
List: $24.98 | Sale: $17.49
Club: $12.49

The Bear
A Novel

Author: Claire Cameron

Narrator: Cassandra Morris

Unabridged: 6 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/11/2014


Synopsis

A powerful suspense novel 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by karen on August 18, 2018

this was the perfect book to read directly after Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park, which had a huge chapter about death by bears in yellowstone and how to (hopefully) avoid being killed by them. in the author's note of the bear, cameron says that her inspi......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on January 31, 2014

I wanted to love this book. I was SO excited to read it, so glad that I was approved for an ARC from NetGalley (and thank you, Net Galley, for supplying me with it!), but I just couldn't love it. The story itself is terrifying and emotional and original. And the writing, in terms of form, is fine. M......more

Goodreads review by F on September 08, 2016

I didn't like this. Child narrators are hard to get right, I just didn't enjoy it. Got bored with all the flashbacks, skimmed over a lot. Found it annoying and distracting. 5 years old was maybe just too young a narrator for me to get into.......more

Goodreads review by Trudi on July 23, 2016

Child narrators under the age of 10 are tricky to say the least. It can be so easily flubbed and come off as gimmicky or inauthentic. Mostly, I'm not a fan. Louis CK's rant about children and their secrets beautifully sums up the why for me. So this book, with its five-year old narrator Anna, is goi......more