The Boy Who Was A Bear

Charles Ashton (author)

Peter Melnyczuk (Illustrations)

Walker Books, UK: 1997; 74pp

ISBN: 0744554543

Genres: adventure, animal, legend

Issues: community, environment, identity

Based on the American Indian legend of the ‘bear people' - bears who can change their skins and walk as humans, this is an intriguing and rather sad story.

The legend tells that, while a bear can take on human form, they must return to their skin before it loses its warmth or is destroyed. If they do not, they must stay in the human form forever - and this is the story of a bear-cub who has to do just that.

One night the narrator and his sister, Kamanda, take off their skins and walk in their naked man-skins around a local farm. The farmer who discovers them is horrified when they run back towards the forest - a place he regards as dangerous for children because of the bears that live there. Thinking to protect them, he snatches up his gun and calls his neighbours to help. The bear-cub in his human skin has to watch as his mother is killed. Brought back to the town, comforted at the apparent ‘death' of his sister, whom he knows found her bear-skin and escaped, the young bear-now-boy has to learn to fit into human society. A kindly American Indian recognises him for what he is and gives him the opportunity to flee, but the bear-cub, now called Bobby, soon finds that his skin has been torn apart by other wild animals. There is no going back to his natural way of life.

This is an evocative piece of writing. Ashton uses simple language in a sophisticated way in order to convey the bear-cub's confusion at his new way of life. Gradually the narrator's language becomes more fluent, more ‘human' and advanced as he adapts to human usages and ways of thinking. The strong relationship between the bear-cub-boy and the natural environment and his hatred of guns, are used by the author to remind the reader of just how precious our surroundings are, how we should live in harmony with the creatures that inhabited our land long before we did.

The Boy Who Was A Bear is powerful, compelling story that may well disturb more sensitive readers. This could work very well as a class text and should provoke some interesting discussions.