Bear Daughter (Paperback)

by Judith Berman (Author) "When Cloud was twelve years old, she woke up one morning to discover she had become a girl..." (more)
Key Phrases: unmasked world, spirit eater, black fin, Raven Tongue, Sandspit Town, Aunt Glory (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Based on Pacific Northwest Native Americans oral literature, Berman's touching fantasy chronicles the journey of Cloud, who at the novel's start awakens one morning as a 12-year-old human girl, when the night before she had been a bear cub. A great bear, one of the immortal "First People," otherwise referred to as a "four legs," had once kidnapped her human mother, Thrush. Cloud was the result. Taking human shape is a disturbing and difficult conversion for her, and the book's young adult audience will relate to her disorientation and awkwardness, an obvious metaphor for even your average adolescent struggle. Separated from her mother, and violently ostracized by her stepfather Rumble (the tribe's chief), Cloud strikes out on her own to seek her paternal heritage, gain self-understanding and come into her powers. Berman balances the story's mythology with convincing emotional subtext, including Cloud's desire to be accepted among her human family and the often ignoble attitudes of the human elders. With its sympathetic young heroine and density of action, this richly re-imagined folk tale may straddle young adult and adult audiences.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Richly blending mythology and folktale, Berman catapults readers into a fantastic world of shamanic wars, talking animals, and immortal beings of frightening power and awesome beauty. In keeping with the mystery of the place, young Cloud has shed overnight the bear part of her identity and wakened as a 12-year-old girl, which outrages and threatens her stepfather, King Rumble. Years before, Rumble murdered Cloud's bear father, Lord Stink; ate the bear's flesh for its power; and magically bound its ghost. Drunk on power, Rumble neither knows nor cares that the legendary Lord Stink's death has ripped a hole in the fabric of the world. Unmagical, outcast Cloud, who wants only to be a child and to be loved, is the only one who can repair the damage. Her monumental task still unrevealed to her, Cloud flees her village and Rumble's murderous threats. Thus begins a long and perilous yet exciting and often wondrous journey to wholeness. On the way Cloud will fall into many deeply depressing situations, but Berman's imagination seems to know no bounds. For as desperate as are the problems Cloud faces, their solutions are correspondingly ingenious. Berman's utterly absorbing, unforgettable first novel announces a truly original and unique voice in fantasy. Paula Luedtke
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ace Trade (September 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441013228
• ISBN-13: 978-0441013227
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,265,115 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for Fantasy Fans, September 13, 2005

By	P. Redmond (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Heroic quests are not my favorite reading material: blood and guts, the underworld, all that death. Yet I've been taken with this daring revision of the genre, inspired by Native American myth but drawing as much on the realm of magic and the fantastic. The heroine is Cloud, twelve years old, who wakes one morning transformed, in Berman's sly inversion of Kafka, from a powerful grizzly bear into a girl. Cloud encountering her strange new body introduces one of the story's preoccupations: the difficulty of claiming all parts of herself, from delicate human fingers to the animal thirst for fresh blood. Berman's exploration of this theme is often tenderly humorous, sometimes startling, never trite.

Bear Daughter is a riveting fantasy with an array of wizards, plot twists, and yes, heroic quest conventions. It's hard to put down. But Berman's up to more than just a page-turner here with her bear-girl on a quest. Bear Daughter is a foray not just into the mythic and actual past of the Northwest coast, but into a fantastic ecology that reveals a piercing clarity regarding the destructive and redemptive powers of the natural world. The world of Bear Daughter comes alive--the orcas and salmon that Berman describes are gorgeous renditions of the inhabitants of the Northwest waters. At the same time, this landscape is a shifting, eerie, interior world, reflecting the emotionally chaotic path of the young heroine, resisting her destiny almost every step of the way. You will find this novel classified as science fiction/fantasy, but it should find enthusiastic readers interested in women's issues, nature, myth or just a really good read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Innovative Native American Fantasy, May 29, 2007

By	StdPudel (Somerville, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bear Daughter (Paperback)

Bear Daughter is a book that renews my faith in the fantasy genre. Fantasy so often seems stuck in the Northern/Western European rut, reworking the same legends and material over and over. Author Judith Berman is a card-carrying anthropologist who uses cultures of the Pacific Northwest as the material for this tale of a girl's journey.

One day a bear wakes up to find she has become a girl. It turns out that her mother is a human woman and her father is a deity in bear form. After spending her childhood as a bear, her bear form falls away and she is suddenly a girl on the brink of womanhood. Her mother's people name her Cloud, and she begins the task of learning to be human. However, she is troubled by dreams, and is driven by internal and external circumstances to address the cause of her recurrent dreams.

All this takes place in a very realistically depicted Pacific Northwest Native American community, with traditions and practices that ring true. The author doesn't clobber the reader with her scholarship - rather it adds richness to every aspect of the story. Similarly, Berman is not constrained by her material, but is able to use it as a point of departure for her craft, creating new settings that are consistent with the cultures she knows well, but are new.

The subject of the book is a young adult, but this is not an easy read. The topics are no gnarlier than most young adult books cover, but Cloud's journey is a complex one. No doubt her trials will seem more immediate to a younger reader, but this is a book for adults to enjoy just as much.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true American fantasy, December 14, 2005

By	BobbyF "Nantucket reader" (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

Bear Daughter evokes American Indian myth and lore of the Pacific Northwest, an unmined and ignored realm, and Berman knows her stuff. This is rich in detail and fully realized, with a young adult story line that is so true of heart, so honest in its emotional textures that it should appeal to any fiction reader. There's been a good deal of talk about where fantasy should go after Potter, and back to Narnia and more Brit Isles sorcery settings is a stale move. Let me profess this...Bear Daughter offers a truly original direction. A must read. And a must tell your friends.