"To see the Spirit Bear he had to be invisible, and to be invisible he had to clear his mind.” (Mikaelsen 189)
I chose this quote because it tells the reader why Cole first saw the Spirit Bear and why he saw it again at the end. The genre of this book was fiction. Cole Mathews gets sent to an island in Alaska because he beat up a kid named Peter. On the island he was supposed to get rid of his anger and think about what he had done. Cole had been sent there by a Circle Justice. They were the people who would let juvenile delinquents have a choice of where they wanted to go. Jail or the island. On his first day he learns how to soak in the lake and roll the rock down the hill to get rid of his anger.
At that time he thought that was stupid. Then he tries to escape by swimming to the main land. That didn't work. The tide washed him ashore weak and tired. That was when he saw the Spirit Bear. Cole tried to attack the bear because it wasn't afraid of him. Cole gets attacked by the bear instead and is seriously injured. He spent several long days alone without much food lying on the ground hurt. Then he woke up and he was in a hospital. The Circle Justice people rescued him.
After he heals they decide to send him back to the island along with Peter. When on the island with Peter, Cole teaches him how to get rid of his anger. Cole shows him how to soak in the lake and how to roll the rock down the hill. One day they were going to soak in the lake Peter gets angry at Cole and hits him. Cole told him he has changed and he will not hurt him anymore. Peter thinks he is lying, just like he thinks Cole never saw the Spirit Bear.
Then at that moment they both see the Spirit Bear. Peter tells Cole he was sorry about hurting him and Cole forgives him. My favorite part was when Cole tried to attack the Spirit Bear but it attacked him instead. I liked it because it taught Cole a lesson not to bother things that aren't bothering him.
The main character in the story is Cole Mathews. He changed a lot in the story. In the beginning of the story Cole was angry all the time. He was sent to the island to get rid of this anger. Throughout his time on the island he began to drastically change. By the end of the story Cole was not angry anymore and turned out to be a good kid. I connected to Cole a lot in this book. I have been angry many times and did many things I wish I could take back. Hurting Peter was one of Cole's mistakes.
When Cole wanted to hurt the Bear because it wasn't afraid of him, I knew that he was the kind of person everyone was afraid of back home. He must have been a very bad person before the island helped him. When Cole wouldn't fight back against Peter, I knew that Cole had really changed. He was a better person now. This story takes place in Alaska.
I learned that it rains a lot there and it is awfully cold each and every day. In the story they kept saying that they could learn a lesson from every animal. I think that is true because they did in the book. After they saw a wolf they learned a lesson and used it the next day. They did the same thing for every animal they saw.
I would definitely recommend this book. It was very good and very exciting. They jumped around a little in the beginning but it was pretty easy to concentrate on it. When the Bear attacked Cole it surprised me and I wanted to keep reading. I thought the Spirit Bear would run away, but I was wrong. I think anyone would enjoy reading this book. It was a page turner and just a really good book. There were many flashbacks in the story. Many of them were when he was on the island and was talking about before he got there during Circle Justice. The title related to the story because there was a Spirit Bear in the story that played a big part in the plot.
I made a text to text connection when Cole was in the hospital. In another book I have read someone gets hurt and has to get to a doctor as fast as possible. I made a text to self connection when Cole went to get fire wood with Peter. My dad and I go camping all the time and have to gather wood. I made a text to world connection when Cole first fought Peter in the beginning. I thought of the war on terror in Iraq and everyone fighting.
In conclusion, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen is a terrific book. It showed me the difference between right and wrong, the truth and a lie. I hope everyone will read this book and like it as much as I did.
