The Bear House

In a gritty medieval world where the ruling houses are based on the constellations, betrayal, intrigue, and a king's murder force the royal sisters of the Bear House on the run! Moody Aster and her spoiled sister Ursula are the daughters of Jasper Lourdes, Bear Major and high king of the realm. Rivals, both girls dream of becoming the Bear queen someday, although neither really deserve to, having no particular talent in... well, anything. But when their jealous Uncle Bram murders their father in a bid for the crown, the girls are forced onto the run, along with lowly Dev the Bearkeeper and the half-grown grizzly Alcor, symbol of their house. As a bitter struggle for the throne consumes the kingdom in civil war—and attracts demonic attention from even darker powers—the sisters must rely on Dev, the bear cub, two mysterious princes from opposing houses, and each other to survive… and find wells of courage, cunning, and skill they never knew they had. For there are many houses in the Bear Highen—the House of the Hemoth Bear, the House of the White Bear, the House of the Ox, the House of the Lion, the House of the Lynx, the House of Hounds, the House of the Blue Giraffe, and the House of the Shadow Dragon—each of them guided and protected by a ferocious namesake beast. But only one can rule. Perfects for fans of Shannon Messenger, Holly Black, John Flanagan, and Diane Magras, this action-packed fantasy-adventure has sky-high stakes, electrifying action, stellar magic, powerful girls, and surprises for even the canniest reader… “An epic, complex narrative.”—Publishers Weekly “Stellar… Thrilling… Enchanting.”—Kirkus Reviews “Truly wonderful.”—School Library Journal “Magnificent.”—The Canadian Children’s Book Center A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Everyone in Miss Thompson’s fourth grade class loves The Bears’ House—Fran Ellen Smith most of all. When Fran Ellen goes into The Bears’ House, she can forget about how awful things are at home. At the end of the term Miss Thompson is giving the house away, but Fran Ellen knows it won’t be to her. How is she going to get along without a place to hide? Juvenile Fiction by Marilyn Sachs; originally published by Doubleday

"Let me say at the outset that this book is not about Bear (he would be spoken of in the singular and masculine, capitalized and without an article), or it is only incidentally about him. I am less interested in defining the being of Bear than in trying to understand something about the spirit of wilderness, of which Bear is a very particular expression. . . . Bear is a template of the wilderness."--from the Introduction Since receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday has had one of the most remarkable careers in twentieth-century American letters. Here, in In the Bear's House, Momaday passionately explores themes of loneliness, sacredness, and aggression through his depiction of Bear, the one animal that has both inspired and haunted him throughout his lifetime. With transcendent dignity and gentleness, In the Bear's House celebrates Momaday's extraordinary creative vision and evolution as one of our most gifted artists.

Friends Fox, Rabbit, Hedgehog, and Mouse all love to read. One day, they find a book in the woods and set off to return it to its owner, Bear. When they arrive at Bear’s house, they discover shelves and shelves of books. A dream come true as they read story after story until Bear comes home!

The black dog is not scratching. He goes back to his sniffing and huffing and then he starts cracking his bone. Stick and I are huddled tight. . . . It is dark and no Daddy or Mommy and after a while I watch the lids of my eyes close down like jaws. Told from the point of view of a six-year-old child, The Bear is the story of Anna and her little brother, Stick--two young children forced to fend for themselves in Algonquin Park after a black bear attacks their parents. A gripping and mesmerizing exploration of the child psyche, this is a survival story unlike any other, one that asks what it takes to survive in the wilderness and what happens when predation comes from within.

From National Book Award in Fiction finalist Andrew Krivak comes a gorgeous fable of Earth’s last two human inhabitants, and a girl’s journey home In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen. A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature’s dominion. Andrew Krivak is the author of two previous novels: The Signal Flame, a Chautauqua Prize finalist, and The Sojourn, a National Book Award finalist and winner of both the Chautauqua Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire, in the shadow of Mount Monadnock, which inspired much of the landscape in The Bear.

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: "A hilarious, richly imagined bear's eye view of love, music, alienation, manhood and humanity . . . that recalls Pynchon at his most controlled."—Publishers Weekly The hero of this sensational first novel is an alto-sax virtuoso trying to evolve a personal style out of Coltrane and Rollins. He also happens to be a walking, talking, Blake- and Shakespeare-quoting bear whose musical, spiritual, and romantic adventures add up to perhaps the best novel, ursine or human, ever written about jazz. "Poignant and touching moments combine with hilarious descriptions of the bear's struggle in a story that anyone — whether familiar with jazz or not — will find compelling and entertaining."—David Amram, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Zabor's knack for detail makes the absurd premise believable . . . and neatly turns the weighty subject — the painful and ungainly growth of an artist — into a comic gem."—The New Yorker "In fluent, witty prose Zabor conveys with remarkable vividness the texture of group improvisation. . . . It swings."—A. O. Scott, New York Newsday "Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. Get the Bear."—David Nicholson, Washington Post "Zabor . . . conveys the mingled joy and terror of musical improvisation. He also displays a mean wit."—New York Times Book Review One of the Los Angeles Times Book Review's 100 best books of 1997 Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction