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The Ice Bear

by Jackie Morris

Interest age: 4+
Reading age: 4+

Published by Frances Lincoln, 2010

  • Picture books

About this book

In icy northern lands, a great white bear gives birth to tiny cubs. But raven the trickster steals one cub away, dropping the creamy bundle of fur in a hunter’s path. The hunter and his wife discover a longed-for child – and rejoice: the bear never forgets her lost cub.

Seven years pass, then raven lures the child back into the wilderness where the lost, bewildered boy finds himself surrounded by great bears who call him ‘brother’. Now the bear/boy must find a way to live with each of his two families.

Bold and sensuous, the monochrome tones, striking contrasts and vivid flashes of colour of the illustrations strikingly underscore this mythic tale of a harsh, elemental and icy world.

About the author

Jackie Morris is a British writer and illustrator. Morris was born in Birmingham in 1961. Her family moved to Evesham when she was four. As a child she was told that she couldn't be an artist, but despite this information being drilled into her by teachers she decided to throw caution to the wind and learn to paint. 

On leaving college she found work in editorial, illustrating magazines like Radio Times, New Statesman, New Society and Country Living. She worked for years illustrating books and in 2005 her book The Seal Children won the Tir Na N-Og Award. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal for Something About a Bear, which she later won in 2019 for her illustration of The Lost Words, book of poetry by Robert Macfarlane with illustrations by Morris. 

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