Book of the Day

I have been dying to tell you about Growing Up Grizzly: The True Story of Baylee and Her Cubs by Amy Shapira and Douglas H. Chadwick. I am absolutely in love with this book. I had to wait till our swap partners received it before I could talk about it.

The photographs are fabulous and the story is true. The authors witnessed this story unfold and we are so lucky to get to experience it in a book! It is about goofy looking 2 year-old bear named Emmett who wanders into an area of land inhabited by other grizzly bears. He notices a mother bear and her three cubs and is immediately drawn to them. The mother does a good job of keeping him away from her cubs, until one day, he sneaks over to them while she is fishing. When she returns she sees this big old bear sitting with her tiny cubs and seems to realize that he needs her. He becomes one of her cubs. She feeds him and teaches him and keeps him close to her as if she has 4 cubs now. They hibernate together and ... well, they seem to be one big happy family. Then when her little cubs are 2 and it is time for them to be on their own... well, Emmett is ready too! It is as if he was kicked out of the den at two but just really needed two more years to be ready... I am tearing up just thinking about it! You can think of it as a bear adoption story or a bear with special needs or a beautiful mommy story or whatever you want... I just thought it was touching and the photographs are fabulous. Did I mention it was true??? So sweet.