Ice Bear: In the Steps of the Polar Bear

I love the cover of this book! Look at it! Isn’t it gorgeous? As soon as I saw it, my eyes lit up and I read it right there in the library; I didn’t even bother to find a table or sit. I just read it, standing in the stacks.

     This non-fiction picture book, Polar Bear: In the Steps of the Polar Bear written by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Gary Blythe presents the unique characteristics that make up a polar bear in a charming and elegant manner. Each page displays beautiful and stoic paintings of polar bears in their natural habit and provides a large amount of information about the life of a polar bear and the relationships it has with its surroundings. They also made sure to incorporate the reverence with which the Inuit people view polar bears and how they’ve depended on the bears for their own survival.

One textual technique that I found interesting about this book is how the information is split up on each page.  One set of text is presented in larger font and set in a paragraph form while the other is done in a swirling smaller font, as though it’s following the snow drifts on each page. Even though life in the Arctic can be harsh and savage, Davies and Blythe do a great job of addressing these aspects in a natural and almost poetic manner.

Aside from the cover, my favorite pages of the book have to be the description of the polar bear’s solitary lifestyle. Here, the pages are separated lengthwise by a white strip containing the larger text. The upper portion shows a solitary polar bear during the summer when it is always day time, while the lower portion shows another solitary polar bear on the right side during the winter when it is always dark. It was a neat way to reinforce this polar bear fact.

Polar bears have such a mysterious allure and this picture book only adds to it. If on a chilly day you feel like a bit of a polar bear yourself, I suggest you pick this book up and snuggle up for a good read.