We home educate 3 children. Their current ages are 8 years and 6.5 year old twins. We struggle (big time!) to find enough books to devour. The kids love reading, and they especially love Mummy to read chapters of books every day. I kid you not! When we find a good one, we want to celebrate and share it with the world!
So let’s start with one of all of our favourite children’s books so far this year… The Last Bear by Hannah Gold. And, even better news, there is a sequel (Finding Bear). And the even bigger news, Hannah Gold has just announced that she will be releasing the next book, The Lone Husky in October 2025. I can’t comment on the Lone Husky yet, as we have to wait nearly half a year for the joy of its release day. But if you want to know whether The Last Bear is worth a read to young children, hopefully this blog post will help you decide!
The Last Bear
A brief synopsis of this book is that a girl goes to an isolated island in the Arctic for a few months with her Dad. It is called Bear Island, except all of the bears in that area have died out. Or have they…? The girl befriends an injured polar bear and ultimately saves his life. She is forced to secretly make plans to save the last bear on her own.
Considerations For Younger Children
The girl’s relationship with her Dad is challenging, since he is working a lot of hours and has shut off a lot of his emotions since his wife died. The Last Bear discussed the background to the main character at the start, talking about her mum having died. This death discussion made me hesitant to read these books to my kids. I wasn’t sure if this would cause alarm for my young children. Fortunately none of my kids seemed to be directly alarmed off the back of reading the story. Our son (aged 6) has mentioned a few times about death. However, he had already discussed death a lot before reading this book and so I doubt this story particularly influenced his alarm over death.
There was a few mentions of how humans can harm wild animals, as well as touches on global warming. My kids may have been too young to understand that those elements of this fictional story were in fact based on reality. Or perhaps they just got so involved in the storyline that these themes crept into their general awareness but without much alarm. Either way, I haven’t heard any worry coming from my kids about global warming etc.
Why I Liked The Last Bear, As A Mother of 3 Young Kids
I like that this story touched on home education as an alternative option, where the girl learned phenomenal amounts of emotional intelligence during her stay in the Arctic without school. She learned how to be close friends with a wild polar bear, and all sorts of impossible aspects to that such as helping navigate getting him safely across an ocean – to save his life! She also chose to read books to further her own knowledge in areas of importance to her. I know this homeschooling part of the story wasn’t a true story, but it presented even brief stints of home education in a positive light. Stories can still influence their readers, even if not factual. So the fact that home education is real-life for my 3 children, it clearly matters whether the path their taking is presented positively or not.
I personally loved the storyline following the girl’s relationship to her emotionally distant father. She struggled to get his quality time throughout most of the book. When he realised he could have lost her for good, he felt love again, and tried to repair things. Which naturally the relationship seamlessly survived. This hit me personally because I am no contact with my own mother. The fact that this parent in The Last Bear stepped up when push-came-to-shove helped to release some of my emotions.
Why My Kids Liked The Last Bear
Because their Mummy cried a few times, especially towards the end. In fact, during one part I cried so much I said to them I couldn’t continue reading aloud anymore… to which they demanded I did! (I survived the reading, although how much they understood I am not sure!). Their Mum crying this much over a story is obviously hilariously funny to young kids!
This was such an unlikely story for it to be believable. How unlikely it would be for young girl to get so close emotionally and physically to a wild polar bear! However, it was so beautifully written that it sparked even our youngest girl’s imagination. You could tell my kids were really ‘there’ in the Arctic with Bear.
I know the kids all loved this book immensely. They desperately want to go and visit the Arctic, and hope to see a polar bear, or at least to see some snow. The girls in particular wanted me to read The Last Bear AGAIN, in full, right now, as soon as I’d finished. I also wanted to read it again just to help me cry out some more tears.
Gentle Parent 