The Bear on the Moon

by Joanne Ryder

Book Overview

A celebrated author and an outstanding wildlife artist weave a spell of wonder as they create a mythic story of a brave white bear who swims to the edge of the sea, where the streamers of light reach... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688081096
• ISBN13: 9780688081096
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Morrow Junior Books
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.9" x 11.3"
• Age Range: 3 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 1 and higher

Customer Reviews

A new Twist on why the Moon changes shapes

I really love this story and how one curious polar goes to the moon and changes it's shape or what we call the different phases of the moon. The book begins long ago when there was only cold water in the Artic and no icy land. And the book begins: " At the top of the world, a winter night last a long time, It is then the storytellers sharetheir tales of how the world began.... But the great white bears tell a different story and this is what they say...... There once was a very curious girl polar bear who loved to ask questions, to explore where others had not and she was a very strong swimmer. One evening she saw multi-color streamers of lights. Wanting to know what they where she began to swim and pushed herself to swim farther and farther until she reached a stair of lights that led to the Moon!!!!! While exploring the moon she loved to run on the ice and wished her friends could also run and play on the ice and rest on land instead of in the water. After much fun was had she took a nap and dreamed. When she awoke she decided she'd take some snow back to earth so she took her paw and broke off big pieces. She knew she would not be able to carry these big piece to earth and decided to throw then to the earth. And it worked, the pieces of ice flew down, down, down and eventally landed and floated in the sea! Once she saw her friends climbing up on to the floating ice, enjoying not swimming all the time, having a place to play, sleep and safetly raise safe dens for young bears, our bear kept throwing down chunks of ice until one day she noticed the moon was disappering. Our young hero bear went back home sad thinking she had carved up all of the moon, but then also saw the life and new animals and plants that began to grow since there was now land. One day the bear looked up and saw the moon had begun to grow again back to it's full shape, she was so very happy! Our bear was the only bear that was ever strong enough to swim to the colorful stairs that lead to the moon and each month she goes and carves more ice from the moon and throws it down into the sea. It's just a really neat story and the water color illustrations are beautifully done!

A good book

There was once a great white bear who wondered about a lot of things. She wondered who deep the sea was, and who lived on the moon. This bear settled for nothing less than the answers she was looking for. One day the bear saw a rainbow in the sky and wondered what it was. She swam and swam until she reached the place where the sea touched the sky. This determined bear finally reached the moon and discovered it was covered in snow and ice. She decided to take some moon home to share with the other bears. She began to dig some of the ice off with her paw and tossed them into the air, they hit the water with a big splash. The bear kept doing this until there wasn?t any moon left. The bear was sad that the moon was gone but was glad that there were changes in the bears lives because of this. Eventually, several days later the moon grew back. The bears believe that each year she sends down ice and snow for the bears to live on, and she is always watching down on them from the sky. I would recommend this book because I thought it had a good reason behind the moon and had a story easy to understand. ~ Katelyn Carson