The Bear by Claire Cameron

 

Anna, five, and Alex, almost three, have gone camping with their parents.  They are in the tent while their parents are just outside sitting around the end of the campfire.  Anna is about to drift off when she smells a horrible smell and something, a big black dog?, snuffles around the tent.  

Of course, it isn't a dog but a bear.  Somehow her dad gets the children inside the huge Coleman container that will save them.  When daylight comes and the children emerge from the Coleman, they don't see their dad at all.  They find their mother in the bushes, bleeding,  She tells Anna to get Alex to the canoe and paddle from the island they are on to the mainland.

This is the story of how Anna and Alex manage to get away.  It is told entirely through the eyes of Anna so from a young child's perspective who doesn't really understand what has happened or why she has to do these things when she just wants her parents.  She doesn't know how to find food or water or what direction to take them in.  She just moves them on as best she can.

Claire Cameron is a Canadian author and this novel was a national bestseller in Canada as well as being longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.  Her ability to see the world through the innocent eyes of a young child in the midst of tragedy is compelling.  The reader will follow the children's journey almost afraid of what the next page might bring.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.