Polar Bear wisely and effectively brings climate change into focus while closely following a family of polar bears as they struggle to survive in a harsh, warming climate.
It's "April in the Arctic" and "temperatures barely nudge above freezing" when a mother polar bear and her two cubs emerge from their den beneath the snow. Mother has survived on stored fat for five months, gestating and nursing her young, and now she's hungry and ready to hunt. She teaches her cubs about the world outside their den until it's time to travel "home to the ice." The trip is long and dangerous, but the family finally arrives at "ice-covered Hudson Bay." Weeks pass as the bear family gorges and gains weight, but they're in a race against time. The odds of survival are difficult in the best of times, and now the ice, so necessary for these bears "to hunt and eat and survive," is being depleted by warming temperatures in the Arctic.
Polar Bear is yet another wondrous collaboration from the Sibert Medal-winning team of Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann (Honeybee). Fleming masterfully builds suspense, and her text will have readers rooting for this family of bears as they struggle to find food and grapple with climate change. Her lovely, lilting prose accompanies Caldecott Medalist Rohmann's breathtaking, achingly beautiful oil illustrations. Back matter explains how polar bears have adapted to their arctic climate and brings home the need to keep climate change at bay, including a section on how readers can help. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author