A collection of 35 previously published children's stories and extracts with their original illustrations.

A collection of 35 previously published children's stories with their original illustrations.

Have you ever gone on a bear hunt? Come along on this one with a brave young family -- four children (including the baby) and their father. They're not scared. With them you will cross a field of tall, wavy grass ("Swishy swashy "), wade through a deep, cold river ("Splash splosh "), struggle through swampy mud ("Squelch squerch "), find your way through a big, dark forest ("Stumble trip "), fight through a whirling snowstorm ("Hoooo woooo "), and enter a narrow, gloomy cave. WHAT'S THAT? You'll soon learn just what to do to escape from a big, furry bear With tremendous pace, humor, and verve, Michael Rosen has retold a favorite tractional story. The pictures by Helen Oxenbury, one of the most widely loved contemporary artists, are full of masterly characterizations, delightful comedy, and high drama, set in lovely sweeping landscapes. This is a book not to be missed, one to be chanted aloud and acted out, to be enjoyed over and over again. It is a picture book on the grand scale.

From Joseph Bruchac, the author of the award-winning middle-grade thrillfest Skeleton Man, comes another creepy tale inspired by the folklore of indigenous Americans. Baron has always been fascinated by bears—their gentle strength and untamed power. But the Bearwalker legend, passed down by his Mohawk ancestors, tells of a different kind of creature—a terrible mix of human and animal that looks like a bear but is really a bloodthirsty monster. The tale never seemed to be more than a scary story . . . until a class camping trip deep in the Adirondacks, when Baron comes face-to-face with an evil being that is all too real.

The true story of the real bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. Nanurjuk, “the bear-spirited one,” is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux. From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay. For millennia, Nanu’s ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic’s lands and waters, oil has been extracted—and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted. This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu’s world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see—other bears, wolves, whales, human beings—and those she cannot. By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence—and our future—is tied to Nanu’s. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.

Photographs and text document the largest gathering of bears in the world at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary in Alaska

"In the tradition of Tales the Elders Told and Tales of the Anishinaubaek, Basil Johnston's newest work, The Bear-Walker, brings to the printed page the spoken myths of his people, myths that have inspired exquisite paintings by David Johnson." "Here is the native spirit, as told by the elders, tales of wisdom and humour, vision and fantasy, alive with a sense of the magical possibilities of life lived close to nature."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

From the Indians who inhabited the land before the first Europeans saw it through the warfare that would finally leave the province in American hands, this book, by the author of "Legends and Lies", traces the history of California.

What is the bravest thing in the world? A brave bear, of course! And who is the best at helping a little bear feel brave? His dad. It is a hot, hot day. Dad Bear says, “I think a pair of hot bears is probably the hottest thing in the world.” So Little Bear suggests they go to the river to cool down. It's a long way. Little Bear tries to impress his Dad by doing a big jump from one rock to another, but he falls over. When he picks himself up and keeps going, his dad says, “I think a brave bear is probably the bravest thing in the world.” For very young children just beginning to dare to do new things and their supportive and loving parents, this gentle read-aloud just might be the best thing in the world.