Touching Spirit Bear (rack) | Ben Mikaelsen

Touching Spirit Bear (rack) | Ben Mikaelsen | Jesse's Awesome Book Review

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Touching Spirit Be...

	Touching Spirit Bear (rack) Ben Mikaelsen HarperTeen, 2005 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 285 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent!

Touching Spirit Bear is the story of Cole Matthews - a young man who is angry and totally lacking in compassion. The story begins as Cole Matthews is being punished for brutally beating a young boy. Following the Native American tradition of Circle Justice, Cole is being abandoned on a remote island in Alaska and must survive for a year. During that year, he is alone to contemplate his life.

This novel is not just an adventure story, but is a book of wisdom based on Native American beliefs. Once you begin to read it, you won't be able to put it down.

I have taught this book to my 8th grade students for several years now. The students love the book and learn a great deal from it. To read the book is to become part of the Circle of Justice.

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Jesse's Awesome Book Review

Picture your self alone on an small island, you're the only person that lives on this island. You have to survive on this island by yourself, and even worse you don't think you belong there. That is exactly what Cole Mathews is going through.
My first reaction to this book was that it wasn't going to be very good. I was very wrong, I really enjoyed reading this book and was rather upset when it ended.

Whether through a weird twist of fate, good friends, or bad friends, or just luck, Cole finds himself having to survive alone on a small island for a year. He has to learn to control his anger, and to be a better person before he has to leave the island, or it will be too late.

There was a part in this book where Cole is trying to escape from the island, and he tries and tries and in the end finds that he hasn't gotten any where. And it makes him so angry because he's used to being in control, he's used to being able to scare people into doing what he wants, and it starts at this point where he realizes that he isn't in control of every thing.
The theme of this book is something like; you aren't in control of every thing, you can't always get your way.

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Great read-aloud for the older reluctant reader!

I have suggested this book to many 11-14 year old boys who have a hard time finding a book that holds their attention. This one has always been a winner!

Touching Spirit Bear

In Touching Spirit Bear, fifteen-year-old Cole Matthews has been bad for years. When Peter tells a policeman that Cole has stolen something, Cole gets revenge. But his revenge almost kills Peter. Cole goes to court and has two options, going to Circle Justice or jail. Cole chooses Circle Justice for one year. But the spirit bear comes to Cole and something bad happens to him.

I recommend this book because, it's good for people who like adventure books. It is scary, and adventurous. I think 5th graders and up can read The Touching Spirit Bear. It even teaches you something if you read it. It's a really good book and I hope a lot of people like it when they read it, and I think it should get five stars.

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Angry Teen Mellows Out

Cole is an angry, angry young man. His parents have been heavy drinkers for years. His father beats him and his mother is too timid to do anything about it. The result is Cole, a high school student who is full of rage and is violent toward anything he is able to be violent toward. He controls people by making them afraid of him, and he is wary of anyone who isn't afraid of him. He has been in trouble for years.

Then one afternoon Cole snaps and violently attacks another student, doing permanent damage to him. Cole is looking at a fairly long jail term his father's highly paid lawyer is unable to bail him out of. But then another option presents itself. A group called Circle Justice, which looks for alternative solutions for people in trouble, steps in to find another way to solve Cole's problem than sending him to prison where things would probably get worse for him. One of the Circle Justice members is a Native American from Alaska, who knows of a tribal practice in which people are sent to live alone on a remote island to recover and pay retribution for crimes. Before he knows it, Cole is alone on an Alaskan island. He has been provided with shelter and supplies, but Cole is so angry the first day that he burns everything up and attempts to swim to the next island. He fails. Then, seeing a huge white bear that isn't afraid of him, Cole flies into a rage and tries to attack and kill it. Instead, the bear attacks and nearly kills Cole, and leaves him lying alone and helpless and unable to move anything except his left arm. For days Cole lies there, eating bugs and simply focusing on survival until the Native Americans come to check on him and bring him to a hospital.

After a year of recovery, Cole feels like a different person. He is determined to try again to make amends by living alone on the island, this time building his own shelter and selling his prized possessions to buy supplies. But will this time alone allow Cole to let go of his anger and get himself under control? And will the boy that Cole beat up ever recover?

Cole's character seemed pretty realistic. It was interesting to get inside the head of someone who was so angry at everything, and to see how his thinking changed. I also liked the characters of Garvey and Edwin. Thye were good mentors, full of good advice.

The way Cole thought of to help Peter didn't seem very realistic, and it didn't seem like it should have worked. I also didn't like that Cole simply used the ways Edwin used to deal with his anger, instad of thinking up his own strategies.

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