Customer Reviews

A Bear Named Trouble

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Have you ever come face to face with a lonely brown bear?
10 year old Jonathan does. Jonathan lives with his Father who is a new keeper at the Alaska zoo. Jonathan is lonely and longs for his Mother and sister who have delayed moving with the family to Alaska so that his mother, a teacher, could finish the school term. There are many children in today's global marketplace who deal with being separated from parents because of their parents jobs demand travel or relocation. I thought the author dealt with this separation very well in developing the comparisons between a lonely young brown bear who is shunned by his mother and young Jonathan who longs for his own Mother and the security of his family together. The author also sends her young readers a message that moving to a new community is not the worst thing that could happen to a family. Jonathan loves animals and because he is "a new kid" and adjusting to his new surroundings he spends a lot of his free time at the zoo. He especially enjoys playing a game he and his sister invented where he imagines himself inside the animals becoming what they see and feel. Then he describes what he has imagined in every detail for his sister who is handicapped. The way Jonathan cares for his handicapped sister is touching and helps us to understand the depth of his young character. Jonathan is devastated when "Momma Goose" one of his favorite animal friends is killed by a wild brown bear when after it broke into the zoo. Jonathan is angry and wants to avenge his goose friend's death. After investigating the troublesome visiting bear, Alaska department of Fish and Game decide the wild bear is too dangerous and must be put down. Jonathan faces the bitter reality of his revenge and then puts himself in danger to help his father save the bear. In the end "trouble the bear is relocated to a zoo and is placed in a habitat where he is next to another bear.

A Bear Named Trouble is a book that even I couldn't put down! My daughter and I started reading it at night before bed and while we normally read one chapter a night, it didn't happen with this book. Two or three chapters later, I'd finally say it was time for lights out. The storyline is fabulous and since Trouble is a real bear at the Lake Superior Zoo, it gives it a whole new meaning for readers. It was fun to finish the book, learn that Trouble is real and research him at the zoo's website. I recommend this book for any animal lover out there and I look forward to reading more by Marion Dane Bauer.

I read this book aloud to my daughters.

Overall, we enjoyed the book. My girls love anything and everything to do with animals, so I knew they would.

There were some strange parts of the book where Jonathan and his sister play a game where they try to imagine themselves inside the animals becoming what they see and feel. The parts of the book written where he is "inside" the animals is just weird, though. I am all for creativity and imagination, and that is not what I have a problem with; it is just the way that Bauer wrote those passages that just seems "weird" to me.

We have read other Bauer books that we have enjoyed more.

All little boys love adventure and my grandson loved this story. He was born in Alaska and it was a nice way for him to see a story set in a place he knew.Wonderful pictures for him to look at too!