The Last Bear

The urgency of saving the Arctic is made wonderfully, magically real in Hannah Gold’s majestic debut.  Eleven-year-old April escapes the miseries of school and travels with her scientist father to a remote outpost on the equally faraway Bear Island. Under the midnight sun, while her father monitors and records temperatures and wind speeds, April explores the island and discovers its last polar bear, isolated, wounded and starving.  We already know that like the mother she can now scarcely remember, April has a special bond with animals.  As she helps and feeds the bear, the two become more than human and animal, more than friends, almost the same creature.  Travelling across the island on the polar bear’s back April understands how he came to be there alone, and the desperate need to take him to Svalbard and the chance of a proper life. There’s no doubt that April’s relationship with the bear is the stuff of fairytales – the thought of him gives her a ‘shimmery glimmer of excitement, as if someone had sprinkled glitter all over her’ – but through it readers are brought exhilaratingly close to a magnificent wild animal and given an vivid, unforgettable message about the importance of saving them. April may be small and overlooked, but she proves to everyone that she can make a difference.  It’s a message readers will take to their hearts.  The story features illustrations throughout by Levi Pinfold and, characteristically atmospheric, they make this book even more special. LS