The Last Bear
Reviewed By William and Esther – age 10 (with some notes from Mummy at the end)
We loved this book.
The Last Bear is about an 11-year-old girl named April who is going on a 6-month meteorological research trip with her dad. April hopes that this will be a wonderful adventure with her father but sadly that is not to be. April’s Dad is very sad as he is grieving for April’s Mum who died and he spends all his time shut away working. April is left to explore on her own. The pair are staying on an uninhabited isle named Bear Island. April wonders if she might see a polar bear but is told that there are no bears living there anymore because the ice caps around the island have retreated further north due to global warming.
However, April has not been on the island long when she finds and befriends a stranded polar bear. The bear is not in a good way. He is very thin from lack of food and his paw is wrapped tightly in plastic rubbish from the sea. April builds trust with the bear and helps him by removing the plastic from his paw. April is a very brave and special girl and finds she can communicate with Bear. Their bond grows as April brings him oat biscuits and peanut butter to eat, soon they’re such good friends that she begins to go “bear riding” and Bear teaches her to listen to all the sounds of nature and to roar like a bear not a girl.
Their friendship is enchanting and we loved seeing their relationship grow. Bear and April explore the island together and April is able to piece together Bear’s sad story. April also shares her own sad story with Bear.
April knows that she will soon have to leave Bear Island and she cannot leave her new friend there to die. She finds out that Svalbard, an archipelago 226 miles to the North, has a polar bear population and must be where Bear belongs. April begins to make preparations to take Bear home.
There is an old boat in Walrus Bay, the place where she first met Bear. April sets about repairing the boat and stocking it with supplies for their journey. She is incredibly brave and more than a little mad to attempt to cross the sea to take Bear home. But she feels that she has to. She wants to. The plan is to leave in a week but then April’s Dad tells her that they are leaving the next day. April and Bear set off, not as prepared as she hoped they would be. They get caught in a tremendous storm with enormous waves and April and Bear are thrown into the icy sea.
April and Bear are rescued from the sea and taken to Svalbard for their final goodbyes.
Mummy’s Review
April’s adventure is fast moving and incredibly well written. There were times when I could not draw breath. One of those being when April was taking the plastic from Bear’s paw with his jaws above her head like a guillotine.
Another time was when April’s father shouted at her. I felt her pain and his in equal measure. I have been that lashing out grieving parent and I had such empathy for father and daughter in that moment. April and Bear battling enormous waves in a raging storm was another heart stopping moment. As April tries to take the polar bear back to Svalbard to save his life, he ends up saving her as she falls to the depths of the arctic sea.
The end of the story is clever and again unfolds beautifully. You are lulled into a false sense that the goodbye will not be overly emotional and then … Well, I could not see the words through my tears and William and I were both sobbing loudly as the little girl roars goodbye to her bear. The way Hannah describes the immense intense emotion of goodbye felt like an outpouring of my own broken heart when my daughter died. I felt the pain and love in every letter of every word. It was just so incredibly powerful and balanced perfectly against the reunion of April and her father, who is ready now to be present and feels emotionally able to be a more active and engaged father to April. The story ends with hope for the future for April and her father and hope for the future of polar bears and the ice caps, if we answer April and Hannah Gold’s roars.
There are so many incredibly well executed points of tension and high emotion in this story. It is exquisitely written and a book that I cannot wait to read again with my younger girls. This is a story that I will be buying for all the children I know for birthdays and Christmases to come.
The illustrations by Levi Penfold are stunning showing the sheer might and size of Bear and how tiny in stature the huge hearted April is x Every picture of them together perfectly portrays their incredible unlikely friendship x Pure magic that another layer of awe and wonder to the story x
This is a story that will capture your heart. A wonderful tale of girl loves bear and a call to action for all of us. The polar ice caps are melting, polar bears are in trouble and we can help them no matter how small we may be. We all have a part to play in this story. We can all make a difference.
As Hannah tells us in her author’s note, Our planet needs our protection, and anyone, no matter how big or small, can inspire hope and create change.
“And if, like me, you’ve fallen in love with Bear, then the best way to help polar bears and protect our beautiful planet is to do everything you can to fight climate change.
With a loud enough roar, I know we can make a difference.”