The Bear by Claire Cameron

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The blurb for this book intrigued me and I was glad to get a copy from netgalley to review. I can’t imagine the terror involved in any sort of animal attack – and there have been a few recently – so I was morbidly fascinated by this story.
It is narrated by five year old Anna who is on a camping trip with her mum and dad and almost 3 year old brother, Stick, so nicknamed because of his constantly sticky hands. During the night Anna and Stick are taken from the tent by their dad and locked into the cooler, as Anna sits in the confined space she hears yelling and growling, a sound like the snapping of bones, sniffing and there’s a smell like meat..a big, black, wet nose pushes through the gap of the cooler that their dad made so they could breathe and Anna and Stick have no idea that their parents have been attacked by a bear.
When Anna finally gets herself and Stick out of the cooler, encouraged in no small part by the smell Stick’s nappy produces, they find their campsite in disarray....food all over, hunks of meat, no parents to be seen, a leg of meat wearing daddy’s shoe and then Anna hears her mum calling her. Lying in grass, covered in blood Anna listens as her mum urges her to take the canoe and Stick and get off the island. What follows is an account of five year old Anna struggling to survive once she has managed to get her and Stick off the island. Told in a stream-of conscience, it goes off at tangents, as five year old minds are wont to do and it is clear that although Anna loves Stick she also finds him really annoying as she tries her best to look after him whilst waiting for her parents to appear.
Obviously the reader is acutely aware what has happened to Anna’s parents and knows they won’t be re-appearing and as Anna and Stick’s trials carry on there are many times when the reader will have their heart in their mouth thinking, ‘Don’t do that!’ as Anna flirts with more danger in her innocence.
It is a very harrowing tale but much as I came to love both Anna and Stick there were parts that didn’t quite work for me. I can appreciate that the narrative has more impact told from Anna’s point of view but at times I did think that she was a little too mature for your average five year old. She must have been terrified. Whether she understood or not what had happened to her parents she would still have been very afraid to be left alone with her brother; instead she seems to take it into her stride, managing her very babyish brother and able to get a canoe across the water with no oar; I can’t help but think that even I, never mind a five year old would have been panicking like mad at that! There are realistic bits, her disgust at Stick’s poo, her longing for a cold drink, her being fed up of her brother, that does all ring true but again, I can’t help thinking that in the situation they were in she wouldn’t have been angry but really, really scared. And if she was such a mature little five year old that she could manage all this, how come she wasn’t aware that dirty water and berries are dangerous –I know I am maybe being pedantic and that the story works better with that thrown in but again, it’s contradicts her mature language and thought processes in other parts and most five year olds do know the danger of dirty water and berries from a younger age! I also think that during the initial attack when she heard her parents screaming she would have been much more afraid than she seemed to be, especially as she was so concerned about making daddy angry.
However, I can suspend belief and you do have to do that. The story did pull me in and I did find myself wanting to know what happened. It was well written although a little confusing in the final part when the children are rescued and safe, in the end I decided just to take from it what I wanted which was a good dramatic story. I did find the attack gruelling and did feel huge sympathy and fear for the children but I did feel that there was something missing, something that could have made it work so much better. Perhaps the author was trying to do too much as there seemed to be a lot of metaphors that didn’t quite go anywhere – or am I picking up on something that wasn’t intended? - which is what threw me. Still, a good read that makes you feel you will never go camping again and certainly raises any parents fears about what they would do if......