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From Amazon
Ben Mikaelsen's depiction of a juvenile delinquent's metamorphosis into a caring, thinking individual is exciting and fascinating, if at times heavy-handed. Cole's nastiness and the vivid depictions of the lengths he must go to survive after the (equally vivid) attack by the bear are excruciating at times, but the concept of finding a way to heal a whole community when one individual wrongs another is compelling. The jacket cover photo of the author in a bear hug with the 700-pound black bear that he and his wife adopted and raised is definitely worth seeing! (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up-Cole Matthews is a violent teen offender convicted of viciously beating a classmate, Peter, causing neurological and psychological problems. Cole elects to participate in Circle Justice, an alternative sentencing program based on traditional Native American practices that results in his being banished to a remote Alaskan Island where he is left to survive for a year. Cynical and street smart, he expects to fake his way through the preliminaries, escape by swimming off the island, and beat the system, again. But his encounter with the Spirit Bear of the title leaves him desperately wounded and gives him six months of hospitalization to reconsider his options. Mikaelsen's portrayal of this angry, manipulative, damaged teen is dead on. Cole's gradual transformation into a human kind of being happens in fits and starts. He realizes he must accept responsibility for what he has done, but his pride, pain, and conditioning continue to interfere. He learns that his anger may never be gone, but that he can learn to control it. The author concedes in a note that the culminating plot element, in which Peter joins Cole on the island so that both can learn to heal, is unlikely. But it sure works well as an adventure story with strong moral underpinnings. Gross details about Cole eating raw worms, a mouse, and worse will appeal to fans of the outdoor adventure/survival genre, while the truth of the Japanese proverb cited in the frontispiece, "Fall seven times, stand up eight" is fully and effectively realized.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.Browse and search another edition of this book.
COLE MATTHEWS KNELT defiantly in the bow of the aluminum skiff as he faced forward into a cold September wind. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching Spirit Bear,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Touching Spirit Bear (Paperback)
A great novel for jr. high and up. It has some great life lessons and would reach out to students who are in difficult situations/home life/criminal behaviour.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life Circles,
By A Customer
This review is from: Touching Spirit Bear (Paperback)
Cole Matthews is an angry young man. At 15, he has broken into a hardware store; damaged the place; bragged about his crime and severely attacked a schoolmate who turned him in. This is the latest in a series of violent and antisocial acts on Cole's part. Cole is quite familiar with violence; his own father, an alcoholic beats him at the drop of a hat while his impassive mother does nothing but reach for the bottle. Jailed and awaiting trial, Cole meets two unlikely allies. Garvey, a Native American parole officer and his partner. The two men suggest Circle Justice, an ancient Native American custom that recognizes the Circle of Life and the Circle as being a metaphor for the Continuum of Life. The first step is to have Cole, the Matthews, the parents of the boy Cole attacked as well as their son and other interested persons in their Minneapolis community. An Elder (or Keeper as she is known) starts the Circle off by insisting on full respect for the Feather; a person may only speak if he or she holds the Feather. Cole's start is anything but auspicious. The Discals, whose son Cole attacked want him locked away for life; the Matthews appear disinterested in the boy while everyone else encourages the Circle Justice approach. Cole, Garvey and his partner leave Minneapolis for a remote island off the southeast coast of Alaska. There he is provided with a shelter and the men tell him they will check on him every few days and bring back supplies. Cole burns the shelter that first night and goes off on a tear. A 10-foot white bear lumbers over toward him and Cole is ready to kill it. No match against the beast, the bear mauls Cole, severely injuring him. The men return two days later to find Cole barely clinging to life. From there, he is transported by skiff to a mainland hospital and from there, to one in Minneapolis. After several months of intensive physical therapy, he is turned over to the juvenile justice system and locked away. Once again, his mentors go to bat for him, dispensing a tough love the boy had never encountered. They are somehow able to secure his release into their custody for Circle Justice, this time at the boy's request. Once on the island, Cole, quite humbled is ready to follow the instructions of the men and learn to live off the Alaskan wilderness. The men teach him the traditions of the Sacred Dances; to help him release his anger, they have him do an anger dance "but only when he is ready to do so" and to carry the Anscestor Stone up the mountain. Cole's redemption comes about with the Gift of Forgiveness. He extends himself to Peter Driscal, the boy he nearly killed at the beginning of the story. The road is a Long & Winding Road and the attempts at repair, redemption and recovery (the three R's) make for a very intense story indeed. I like the way an interview with the author and a list of thought provoking questions were included at the end of the story. The story brings to mind the Harry Chapin classic, "All My Life's a Circle" and Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game." This is an outstanding and very unique book indeed!
2.0 out of 5 stars
A strange lesson on Assimilation...,
By
This review is from: Touching Spirit Bear (Paperback)
Perhaps it wasn't the author's intent, but having just finished "Touching Spirit Bear" I came away with the feeling that the book's lesson wasn't truly about healing or forgiveness but rather about how wrong the "white man's culture" is when dealing with the problems within it. The lesson I got from Edwin, an Elder, (and even Garvey, a native Parole Officer, most of the time as well)'s cold lectures and insistance that Cole adhere to their way of viewing the world and their methods of finding inner peace was that their beliefs and culture were the only right ones. The rather more hypocritical aspects being that they are only forcing this all upon Cole, apparently, because they themselves failed to find peace within their own belief structure themselves in the past.I gave this book two stars instead of just one because, for some people, the lessons inside may ring true, but the general impression of the underlying theme left a bitter taste in my mouth.
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