The Great Bear watches over the wonder, whirl and pulse of the Arctic. He knows the movement and shadow of every creature, every drop and breeze. However, Man is different. What’s more, his shadow is unlike anything The Great Bear has ever known. It seems troubling, indecisive, underhand and threatening. Man smirches the deep sea with his nets that break up this hidden world, before his oil pipes gush and ruin. What can be done? Might Man see this world as it was, as he’s harming it? Can he be taken in hand by The Great Bear? After all, in the deep, Man has left it so ‘no kelp sway[s]. No seals sw[i]m. No whale song echoe[s] around the deep.’ Life has vanished and all that is left is broken. Will Man bee moved to put his damage right? To clean ‘the oil from the water and the animals. [To] put away his huge nets and never again [take] more than he need[s]? The message might be formed in a children’s picture book, but the urgency is potent, and it demonstrates how climate is something for each of us to be aware of. Thereafter, Annie Booker’s picture book is imbued with most moving, Turner-esque landscapes, rich with movement, horizon colours and such skilled realisation of depth and distance. Bookwagon recommends The Great Bear. One of the Guardian’s Best Books of the Year.
