3/17/2023 0 Comments Publisher of the journey backSomeone seized my cloak from behind, nearly toppling me. I slipped between two seamen who were reaching for it, snatched up the rabbit haunch, and ran hard for the door.Ī shout: “Hey! You, boy!” Then more shouts, and curses, and a scraping of benches behind me. The meat vanished from the platter so quickly it was hard to credit, until a single leg joint lay there alone. Men in blue, sailor’s garb thronged in about it, digging in with hands and knives. She slapped it down on a table: a mound of roasted rabbit sitting in a puddle of gravy and blood. A serving maid brushed past me bearing a tray above her head. But the smell of warm meat wafted all about and underneath the other smells, and it lured me in deep. The inn was dim and crowded, rank with the commingled odors of sweat and sour ale and wet wool and mud. That, without coin, I would be unwelcome in a place such as this. I told myself that it was fruitless to torture myself with tantalizing aromas. The rich fragrance of meat assailed me more powerfully than before, flooding my nose and mouth and throat. I crept down the street and rounded a corner into an alley, where I spied an inn before me, light blazing from its windows. Beyond the quays the shops and houses of Bergen stood resolutely shoulder to shoulder, solid and prosperous, leaving no room for a starveling waif such as I. The crowds had thinned, and the men who passed me now seemed somehow sinister, their faces distorted by the shadows of the lanterns that had begun to flicker to life. The voices dimmed and then swelled again. It had been two days since I had finished the last of my provisions, and hunger had made me weak. I straightened my cap on my head, hitched my knapsack to my shoulder, and wobbled to my feet. I rose to one elbow and breathed it in, imagining tearing into a hunk of my mother’s roasted mutton, feeling the warmth of it going down and the heavy, drowsy ease of a full belly. But then it was back again, a rich, deep, meaty aroma that set all the waters in my mouth to flowing. It teased me, growing stronger and then fainter-so faint I thought, for a moment, that I had dreamed it. Now a wave of talk and laughter met my ear, but I knew that wasn’t what had wakened me. IT WAS THE smell of roasting meat that roused me.Ī small rain had begun to fall, and though I had curled up beneath the eaves of a cobbler’s shop, the ground soaked up the damp and wicked it through my cloak and tunic, into my shirt. When pirates attack, Arthur must make a choice-does he do everything he can to save himself, or does he help the bear to find freedom?īased on the real story of a polar bear that lived in the Tower of London, this timeless adventure story thoughtfully looks at the themes of freedom, captivity, and the bond between a boy and a bear. But the journey holds many dangers, and Arthur knows his own freedom-perhaps even his life-depends on keeping the bear from harm. Tasked with feeding and cleaning up after the bear, Arthur’s fears slowly lessen as he begins to feel a connection to this bear, who like him, has been cut off from her family. So Arthur finds himself taking care of a polar bear on a ship to England. Yet, strangely, she doesn’t harm him-though she has attacked anyone else who comes near. The first time Arthur encounters the bear, she terrifies him. The polar bear is a royal bear, a gift from the King of Norway to the King of England. “A breathtaking adventure.” -Kirby Larson, Newbery Honor–winning author of Hattie Big SkyĪ runaway boy befriends a polar bear that’s being transported from Norway to London in this “stupendous coming-of-age tale stuffed with adventure” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review). “ large-hearted and riveting medieval adventure.” -William Alexander, National Book Award–winning author of Goblin Secrets “A lovely little miracle of a book.” -Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal–winning author of The One and Only Ivan
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