Have you been reading along with the Cityline Book Club? Here at the Cityline office, we’ve been completely enchanted by the relationship between Bo and Bear in Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s All the Broken Things. Animal and human relationships are always interesting to read about, but there’s something about that bear that has really captured our imaginations. If you loved reading about Bo and Bear’s friendship, check out these five other novels that feature bear characters:
Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book: Baloo the bear stars in this classic collection of stories inspired by British author Rudyard Kipling’s years living in India. These fable-style stories use anthropomorphic animals to give moral lessons, and Baloo (along with Bagheera the panther) endeavours to teach young boy Mowgli the “Law of the Jungle”.
Claire Cameron, The Bear: When a bear attacks her family’s campsite and kills her parents, five-year-old Anna escapes with her younger brother and so begins a thrilling survival tale. By using Anna as the novel’s narrator, Cameron gives a new perspective to the wilderness survival genre as we see fear, hope, and bravery through young eyes.
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass: Iorek Byrnison, an armoured sentient bear, joins protagonist Lyra Belacqua in an Arctic search to find Lyra’s missing friend Roger, in this first novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy. This epic fantasy series is an unique coming-of-age story as Lyra and her new friend Will wander through a series of parallel universes.
A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh: Is there any bear more adorable than Pooh Bear? In this first collection of stories about the “silly old bear”, readers also get to meet his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit in the Hundred Acre Wood. Beware of the heffalumps and woozles!
James Oliver Curwood, The Grizzly King: This 1916 novella inspired the more famous 1998 film L’Ours, known in North America as The Bear. Set in the Canadian Rockies, the story centers around Thor, a huge grizzly bear, who adopts an orphaned black bear while trying to escape from a team of hunters, and tackles issues of conservationism and environmentalism.
Have you read any great books featuring animals? We’d love to hear about them in the comments — share your faves below!