I was very excited to read The Bear until I started it and then I couldn’t wait to just be done with it. The story is horrific but you sort of can’t turn away. Except. Except that it’s written in this childlike voice that matches the young narrator well but is so, so, so distracting. I couldn’t hardly handle it.
I’m fascinated by the story in Island of the Blue Dolphins. A woman is left on an island after everyone else in her community leaves. She survives for nearly twenty years alone until she is picked up and taken to the mainland United States. She subsequently catches a disease and dies within a short period. That sounds like a total spoiler, but it’s all in the story’s introduction. The book itself is about those twenty years on the island. If I had read this as a child, I think I would have loved it. As an adult, I kept waiting to learn about the brief time she spent in the States, but those details never came. It’s still an excellent story and one I’ll be gifting to my young reader friends.
Heather
Hmm… I’m thinking I’ll avoid The Bear for awhile. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read Island. Sounds like I missed out!