10. How did Buffy, the black bear you adopted and raised, come to be a part of your family?
Buffy was a research animal. I don’t know a whole lot about his past, except that he had been declawed at a research facility and would most likely have been killed. Once they declaw an animal it cannot be released into the wild and zoos no longer want them for display. I have the same federal and state licenses as a zoo, which allows me to raise Buffy. But I do not recommend that people raise wild animals. I’ve seen many, many cases where people have tried and it always ends up tragically for the animal. If you raise a 50-pound dog wrongly, it becomes a 50-pound nuisance. If you raise a 750-pound bear wrongly, it can kill you. Raising Buffy has been a rewarding experience for me only because I have devoted my life to his care and well-being.
11. Have you learned things from Buffy, as Cole learned things from the Spirit Bear?
Yes, I have learned so many things from Buffy—the same lessons that Cole learned from the Spirit Bear. Buffy has taught me that how I treat him is how he treats me. This is also so true of how we treat the world in which we live. Buffy also taught me to be sensitive and kind. The only way Buffy will trust me is if I am trustworthy. You can’t lie to a bear the way you can to a human. Buffy has also taught me to accept and to forgive myself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A special thanks to those who patiently helped me understand the healing ways of Circle Justice.
Books by Ben Mikaelsen
TREE GIRL
RED MIDNIGHT
RESCUE JOSH MCGUIRE
SPARROW HAWK RED
STRANDED
COUNTDOWN
PETEY
TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR
Winner:
North Dakota Flicker Tale Book Award
Nautilus Award for Young Adult Literature
California Young Reader Medal
Nevada Young Readers’ Award
Nominee:
Kansas Heartland Award
Texas Lone Star Reading List
Utah Young Adults’ Book Award
New Mexico Land of Enchantment Book Award
Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award Finalist
Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award (Oklahoma)
Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award
(Illinois)
Young Hoosier Book Award (Indiana)
South Carolina Young Adult Book Award
Arizona Young Readers Award
Wyoming Soaring Eagle Book Award
Pacific Northwest Library Association Reader’s Choice
Award
Maude Hart Lovelace Book Award (Minnesota)
Kentucky Bluegrass Award
Copyright
TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR. Copyright © 2001 by Ben Mikaelsen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mikaelsen, Ben, 1952–
Touching Spirit Bear / by Ben Mikaelsen.
p. cm.
Summary: After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.
ISBN 0-380-97744-3—ISBN 0-06-029149-4 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 0-380-80560-X (pbk.)—ISBN 0-06-073400-0 (pbk.)
[1. Juvenile delinquents—Rehabilitation—Fiction. 2. Anger—Fiction. 3. Forgiveness—Fiction. 4. Child abuse—Fiction. 5. Tlingit Indians—Fiction. 6. Indians of North America—Alaska—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M5926 To 2000 00-040702
[Fic]—dc21 CIP
AC
EPub Edition © March 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200968-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Ben Mikaelsen, Touching Spirit Bear
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