THE DANCING BEAR

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A gentle and deeply moving story of a young girl and her bear, told with great charm by the nation's favourite storyteller, Michael Morpugo.

High in the mountains, in a tiny village, an abandoned bear cub is adopted by a lonely orphan child. Soon they are inseparable, beloved by the whole village - safe, until the arrival of a glamorous film crew who need a dancing bear...

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Horn Book Review

In a remote mountain village, a lonely girl finds and raises a bear cub. When a film crew comes to make a video based on the Pied Piper theme, Roxanne is enticed to leave by the promise of fame and fortune, and the bear dies of a broken heart. Despite the book's brevity, it seems more appropriate for older children. From HORN BOOK 1996, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Readers of Morpurgo's Waiting for Anya (1990), which also featured an orphaned bear cub, may feel this novella is set in the same tiny, sheepherding village in the French Pyrenees. Roxanne, a sweet girl who sings like an angel, adopts a gentle abandoned cub that adores her. Years later, when a famous pop singer and his entourage arrive to make a music video based on ``The Pied Piper of Hamelin,'' Roxanne is given a starring role; she is soon charmed away to a life of fame and fortune, leaving her beloved bear behind. The morning after her departure, the bear is found dead, upright in his cage as if staring after Roxanne. This is an affecting story, certainly, but the bear's sudden death is melodramatic, and Roxanne is such a sympathetic character that her sudden neglect of home ties is scarcely credible. However, the Pied Piper theme is thoroughly developed, and the misty black- and-white drawings echo the pervasive melancholy of the text. (Fiction. 9-12)