"Mother stops, sniffs, stands.
Nothing is familiar.
Not the smell of the air.
Not the feel of the ice.
For the first time in her life,
she does not know where she is.
What has happened to the Arctic
spring world she has always known?
All she can see is water."
I hope you have read Honeybee (Neal Porter, 2020) and Giant Squid (Roaring Brook, 2016). If not, you might want to see if you can find them at the library. This team now bring us the story of a polar bear family (mother and young) trying to acclimate to their changing northern landscape. We meet the three in April, warm in their den. The mother is ready to leave this safe place and venture outdoors with her babies in tow.
It is time to go home, to find food, and to teach her young to survive. The two little ones are scared in this new world. For a week, they leave and return to the den, all the while learning about this unfamiliar environment. Instinctively, Mother knows their route and destination. She is going back to where she came from before the birth of her cubs. She protects them from danger, hurries them along, and finally reaches the shore she is seeking. Hudson Bay ... home and hungry!
They are now faced with a new and different kind of danger. The ice is melting too fast, making it very difficult to hunt the food she needs. As days pass, she is able to find sustenance and teach the cubs how to hunt for themselves. By June, they are far out on the ice with the threat of melting snow making the hunt more crucial to their survival before the long, lean summer.
"Mother's instinct tells her they must swim for shore.
Adult bears can swim sixty miles nonstop.
But not young cubs.
Can they survive?
As she leads them into the Arctic waters, she hopes they will be strong enough to make the long and arduous swim. Here, a fantastic double gatefold allows young readers to see the three take the plunge. Open it further, and all there is to see is water from edge to edge along a wide horizon. It seems endless and impossible. When they finally reach safety, the exhausted cubs sleep next to the warmth of their mother's body. From July until September, they wait for the ice. once fed and ready for another long winter sleep, they spend their last season together. The cubs will then leave their mother and make a life for themselves.
The writing is stellar, matched by the equally amazing artwork that fully unveils the majesty of the bears and the extraordinary northern setting. This is another triumph for a gifted team. Back matter provides a captioned illustration of the polar bear, information about the ice, 'cool' facts, and a useful list of resources for follow-up learning.
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