This is a book about a girl called Darcy who goes to live with her dad in the snowy wilderness of Yellowstone National Park in the US. But she doesn’t want to be there and instead she wants to be back home in London, wearing makeup, hanging out with her friends and going to real school. She’s been sent to live in the wilderness because she has pneumonia and has been advised by doctors to breathe in fresh air.
She hates it, until she finds the bear. One day she’s really tired when she gets to the top of a cliff she’s climbing (and she’s not even meant to climb, because of her medical problems). Her doctor says that she shouldn’t get too cold or wet from the snow when she’s outside. So she sits on the ground for a bit knowing it’s a bad idea. Then she finds a cave at the top of the cliff, and a bear inside it!
The bear is a grizzly bear, an adult with a wound in her shoulder. It was walking along with her cubs, and the rangers shot her in the shoulder and took her babies away.
When I found that out I felt devastated and angry with the rangers. The bear is still injured when they first meet. Darcy is so tired that she just lays down with the bear without even realising it. The bear doesn’t do anything horrible to her and afterwards, in a bit of a trance, she can’t even believe that happened.
The next day she has an urge to go back to the bear because it’s so beautiful. She’s trying to help the bear get down its shoulder from the ledge but she can’t. She comes every day and feeds the bear.
I can’t tell anything else because I’m going to spoil the story for you. All I’ll tell you is it made me cry and it’s a beautifully written story. It’s all written in first person, which I like a lot. It’s inspired me quite a lot to write my own fan fiction of similar stories, or at least a similar beginning. Great book. I really think you should read it if you like animals and fantastic, really engrossing fiction. I’d recommend it for aged 10+.
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