Touching Spirit Bear monthly review

In the novel "Touching Spirit Bear" by Ben Mikaelsen is a fiction book about a young, angry boy named Cole Matthews is caught up in a life full of crime. But he has never been convicted of a crime until now. One day Cole got angry with a fellow classmate and decided to beat him up. Not only did Cole beat him up but he also caused the young boy named Peter to require facial surgery. Peter was never the same. He now has to choose on whether he wants to go to jail or participate in the Circle Justice, a group of people who try to help out kids like Cole. Cole insists that doing this will never help him change but he figures it is better than going to jail. The circle decides to isolate him on a island of Alaska where he will spend one year trying to heal himself from his anger. The island is said to have a spirit bear that is suppose to help someone find out what life really means. But when Cole faces the bear, he is mauled until he almost dies. He is rushed to a hospital where he is treated until he is ready to face the circle for another meeting. At the meeting the circle decides to give Cole another chance on the island. This time he knows he can't mess up so he takes full advantage of this opportunity. He does many things on the island to help him change including sitting in a freezing pond thinking, carrying a rock to get rid of his anger, and carving a totem pole. Near the end of Cole's sentence, Peter joins him because he needs a lot of help as well. In the end the fight once mote but this time Cole is the one beaten up and they both decide to forgive each other for what they have done. I would recommend this book for middle school students because younger students tend to enjoy adventurous/ fictional books. I can tell because I would have loved to read this book in middle school instead of the books that were required. This book is very interesting but I think that I should read something more realistic, maybe a non-fictional book.

There were many weaknesses in this book in my opinion. But the most significant was the repetition. When Cole was stuck on the island he was told that if he ever wanted to get rid of his anger he would need to walk to a freezing pond every morning, and carry an "ancestor rock" up a hill and to push it down to release his anger. So for about the last five chapters, Cole would follow this pattern every day and it got a little annoying. It seemed like every chapter would be about Cole doing this routine every day, cooking dinner, look for animals, dance around a fire, and carve his toteom pole. After a while the book got extremely boring and I wanted to stop reading it. Another weakness of the book was the ending. At the end of the book Peter and Cole were involved in another fight. This time Peter beating up Cole. Cole did not fight back because he wanted to show to Peter that he has changed and that he would never hurt anyone again. After the fight, they both broke down crying and it seemed like they finally forgave each other for what they have done. So they went back and carvedt he final piece on Cole totoem and the book ended not telling us if Peter every forgave Cole for what he did. The ending of the book was one of the worst i have ever read. The author could have added a lot more to the end that would have made this bovel much more entertaining. The author could have told us what happens to Cole when he returns home and faces his sentence. I really wanted to find out if Cole went to jail or not and if Peter will ever forgive Cole for what he did to him. I also wanted to see how people thought about Cole after he has made a dramatic change from his experience on the island. There were a lot more weaknesses in this book that made me not enjoy it as much but I feel that these two were the most important parts the author should have improved.

I think the author's style of writing is very unique. The book started off interchaning events every chapter. The first chapter started of when Cole was locked up on the boat about to go to the island. The second chapter talked about Cole's life and what he did before he was forced to go on the island. It kept on interchaning until it was Cole just on the island and there was no more information needed about what happened before. It is a unique style that I do not like that much. I guess it is cool that he wanted to try something different than most books but it was hard for me to concentrated on one event when the next chapter is going to talk about something completely different. I would get really into COle's adventures on the island and want to read more but the next chapter would be about Cole back at home and that really threw off my focus because I would have to switch my mind to a different subject. I would have just written it like most other books, starting off with Cole at home and what he did and then Cole on the island. The book would have made a lot more sense and would be a lot easier to read. The book was not that interesting but I enjoy it some what. I liked a lot of parts including Cole's complete transformation for bad and angry kid to a ver caring and nice kid that won't hurt anybody. It was also cool to read about the spirit bear and what it did to Cole. In the authors note he said that the spirit bear was real and has helped many people and still does. That was a very cool fact to know. I did not really like this book all that much and will probably not reconmend it to any of my classmates but it had some good parts to it that I enjoyed. I hope my next book will be a lot more interesting to read.