Synopsis
While picking blackberries one summer day, a young woman steps in a pile of bear dung. Disgusted, she curses the bears. Two black bears overhear her complaints and decide to teach her a lesson. They take her to their village, where she’s forced to marry the Bear Chief's nephew. Slowly, she becomes accustomed to her strange new life, but she longs for her old life and her brothers, who still search for her. Will they ever find her? And what happens if they do? Gorgeous illustrations depict the young woman’s life with the bears, an experience that transforms her in unexpected ways.
School Library Journal
Gr 1-4
In this retelling of a West Coast First Nations' myth, a young woman tells her friends that bears are ugly, filthy, dumb animals. The Chief of the Bear People wants to punish her, but his nephew asks for her as his wife. From Mouse Woman she learns that bears can transform into humans and then into bears again. Her bear husband is kind to her, and the seasons pass swiftly. When her brothers hunt for her, her husband takes her up into the snow-covered mountains where she gives birth to twins with human faces and bear cub bodies. Rather than harming her brothers when they come to the mountains, her husband allows himself to be killed, asking only that the young woman sing his death song and teach her people to respect the bears. Unhappy among her own people, she is finally able to transform herself and her children into bears and return to the wilderness. Atanas's exquisite watercolor illustrations capture the natural beauty of the Pacific Coast and the distinctive culture of the First Nations people. A wordless spread of three bears in a grassy meadow with mist-hung mountains in the distance helps readers appreciate the young woman's two transformations-mentally respecting the animal kingdom and physically becoming a bear. This is a welcome addition to units on Native American cultures.-Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN