The Snow Bear

Holly Webb's The Snow Bear is a snowy Christmas story for 7 year olds about a girl whose snow sculpture turns into a real polar bear cub.

What happens

Sara is staying with Grandad in his old stone cottage on a clifftop, just before Christmas. Mum and Dad are at home, because her baby brother is due soon. It's the first time she's been without them, and she misses them a LOT.

Grandad is lovely. He lived in the Arctic for a year as a boy, and his house is full of things he brought back. His best story is about a polar bear cub he and his friend Alignak found and looked after. They called him Peter.

When thick snow falls in the night, Sara makes a bear of her own on the lawn, with bits of green sea glass for eyes. Then Grandad helps her build an igloo with an old snow knife made of walrus ivory. (She's not too sure about the knife.)

Then comes the bad news. The roads are blocked, and she might not get home for Christmas.

So that night they take sleeping bags and prawn sandwiches out to the igloo for one more story. When Sara wakes up, the house has gone. There's snow as far as she can see, and her bear is a real cub, all on his own and looking for his mother.

What's lovely is how much you feel with Sara. She tries so hard to be cheerful for Grandad, then cries under her duvet anyway. Out in the Arctic she's feeding a hungry cub her sandwiches and trying to remember everything she's ever read about bears. Who wouldn't want to look after a lost polar bear cub? (Even one with quite big teeth.)

It's worth knowing that Grandad's bear story is a sad one, and Sara knows it. The boys had to leave Peter on the ice when he grew too big to keep. Grandad never found out for sure what happened to him. A child who worries about animals might want a cuddle at that bit.

If your reader loves snow, polar bears or a really good grandparent, this is a cosy one for dark evenings.

What to read next

If it goes down well, try The Reindeer Girl. Lotta has grown up on her mum's stories about her great-grandmother's childhood herding reindeer with her Sami family, and now she's in Norway to meet her at last.