this book is about a bear who is a wild cub and is always getting in trouble by sneaking around at night and is getting in to trouble by go into the neighbors yard and is always making noise. ( )

This book is a good book you should read it. ( )

A young brown bear and ten-year-old Jonathan, each missing his mother and trying to find his place in a new environment, meet in Anchorage. Jonathan is there because his zookeeper father has accepted a new job, although his mother and sister temporarily remain in Minnesota. The adolescent brownie is newly-independent, hungry, and has a broken jaw. The city beckons him with the availability of soft human food, less competition from other bears, and potential companionship from the zoo’s resident grizzly. One night Jonathan follows the bear under the fence into the zoo and watches as it kills Mama Goose, his favorite inhabitant. Grieving and outraged, Jonathan wants the bear held accountable for the murder. After instigating a citywide ‘bear hunt,’ Jonathan realizes that bears and humans do not share a moral code. He learns that a nuisance bear will pay with his life for trespassing in human territory. Without thinking of the potential danger, Jonathan rushes to Trouble’s aid in the final showdown. Marion Dane Bauer meshes the story of an actual bear, now residing at the Lake Superior Zoo, and a fictional boy. She switches between their perspectives in short, episodic chapters; delineating each point of view with a unique font to help newer readers make the transitions. As bear/boy encounters become increasingly prolonged and dangerous, their perspectives merge within a single chapter. Bauer introduces new vocabulary and detailed information about the communication, diet, physical features, and social behavior of brown bears within a multi-species coming-of-age tale. Boys who love animals will resonate with Jonathan’s empathy and enjoy the chance to creep into the skin of a grizzly. Kids in transition may recognize themselves as the heroes struggle with growing independence; long for comfort in strange, new homes; experience loneliness; and seek to sate their literal and metaphorical hunger. This is a compelling, action-filled story which ends hopefully despite the critical mistakes of both protagonists. Highly recommended for its believable, creative plot and realistic treatment of wild animals. ( )

In Anchorage, Alaska, two lonely boys make a connection--a brown bear injured just after his mother sends him out on his own, and a human whose father is a new keeper at the Alaska Zoo and whose mother and sister are still in Minnesota. ( )