I picked up this book on a whim, because the book store I was in was running a buy one get one sale, and I am so glad I did, because this book very possibly changed my life. 

It is a children‘s book, and it feels almost silly to admit that I cried my heart out while reading this not just once, twice, no, I cried four separate times while reading this. The emotions are so real, so raw, so powerful, and it was a book I did not put down until I was finished with it. It was everything - inspiring, childlike, emotional, and heart-wrenchingly amazing. 

April Wood finds herself on a remote island in the Arctic, Bear Island, which used to be full of bears. But after the ice caps  melted, leaving just one bear trapped behind, April takes it upon herself to befriend him, and thus begins the story of two unlikely friends, facing the harshness of global warming, and learning how to change the world together.

Gold‘s writing is poetic, and it reads like a book that could be spoken as a bedtime story, or something that a grandparent might tell their children about. Her descriptions are easy to understand, but evoke such raw emotion, and she has a way of understanding how to use format and font to convey her message. It felt like someone was speaking the words to me, telling me a story that I could tell onwards and onwards. It was comforting, and I loved it. 

This was a call to arms to save our planet, but it was so much more than that. It was a story of hope, of doing everything in your power to change the world, even if your power isn‘t very much. It was the story of a girl and her bear, and it has changed the way I will look at our world forever.