Polar Star

by Sally Grindley, John Butler (Illustrator)

Journey through the Arctic with Polar Star and her cubs.
While her new cubs Snowball and Snowflake are too young to venture far from their den, Polar Star shows them the delights of their ice and snow wonderland home. But when the cubs are old enough to leave the safety of the den, they must learn how to survive in their beautiful yet hostile world and follow Polar Star across the treacherous sea ice in search of food.
Author Sally Grindley’s exciting story presents a factually accurate portrayal of the joyful but often dangerous life of the largest meat-eating mammals on earth. John Butler’s wondrous landscape paintings recreate in full color the grandeur of the Arctic world. A Polar Bear Facts page at the back of the book invites readers to learn more about these magnificent animals.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published June 19, 1997

About the author

I came into children's books originally as Editorial Director of a nationwide children's book club, though I had written and directed a children's play while a student at Sussex University, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. I wrote my first two children's picture books in 1984 and was lucky enough that Anthony Browne wanted to illustrate the second - Knock Knock Who's There? It was published in 1985, is still going strong today and is one of my most successful.

Shhh! was published in 1991 and has known great success in France/Belgium in particular (close on 300,000 copies sold). It's success in the UK - it won the Children's Book Award - was hampered by the liquidation of its original publisher.

I became a full-time author in 1995 and now have some 150+ titles published, the most recent being L'Histoire du Soir in France, Belgium and Italy.

Feather Wars, published in 2003, was my first sortie into young fiction and was followed by the very successful Spilled Water, which has been published in some ten different languages and is very popular in schools as a class reader. It won the Nestle Smarties Gold Award (and I wound up being a 'Pointless' answer on the back of it!) Broken Glass came next and was a Sunday Times Book of the Week.

I'm currently working on picture books again and have plans to illustrate one of my own in the not too distant future - watch this space!

Reviews

[instawa_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salah satu buku cerita anak yang cocok dibacakan sebagai pengantar tidur, atau teman bermain anak, sekaligus mungkin untuk menumbuhkan minat baca anak. Nggak tau juga sih karena aku belum punya anak. hahaha.

Tapi buku ini menarik, karena menyimpan doktrin yang frontal sekali. Secara sadar memberitahu anak-anak bahwa manusia, dengan segala ketidak-hati-hatian mereka, bisa menjadi musuh besar bagi hewan-hewan yang hidup di alam liar. Karenanya buku ini sangat bagus untuk anak-anak. Menumbuhkan kesadaran akan pentingnya bersikap bijaksana kepada sesama makhluk hidup memang harus diajarkan sejak usia dini.

Dari segi isi, selain bahasanya yang sederhana dan mudah dipahami oleh anak-anak, juga menceritakan kehidupan anak beruang yang sedang dalam tahap belajar mengenal dunia. Aku rasa sangat relevan jika dibandingkan dengan anak-anak manusia, yang juga sedang dalam proses mengenal dunia. Buku ini juga menyelipkan pengetahuan dan fakta tentang beruang kutub. Bagaimana kehidupan mereka, bagaimana cara mereka beradaptasi dengan lingkungan yang sangat dingin, bagaimana mereka mendapatkan makanan dan ancaman apa saja yang membahayakan mereka. Ilustrasinya juga sangat membantu untuk memahami isi buku.

Secara keseluruhan, mantep lah! :)

Oya, aku punya yang versi Bahasa-nya, dengan judul "Bintang Kutub". Sepertinya kalau yang versi Bahasa Inggrisnya juga bagus, untuk melatih bahasa Inggris. Hihihii..***

[Emma Goranov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice book about the life of the polar bear.

[Phou · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
:)

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork is gorgeous and I was particularly enjoying reading this book and thinking of myself as the mama polar bear with her two cubs. How can the reader NOT project themselves into these kinds of mother-child stories? My son does it all the time. This becomes problematic, however, when the dramatic turn comes and the male polar bear enters the scene to try to EAT the cubs. What do you do with that??? I get that it's accurate to depict that and that is refreshing, but boy that male polar bear is fierce and frightening looking, and if you as the child reader are projecting yourself as the cub, and your mother as the mother, who do you project onto the male bear character? Your father? All male (*dangerous*) strangers? Maybe all males? It bugs me.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A polar bear (Polar Star) has a couple of cubs. They discover the world and all that comes with it--even danger! With that in mind, it's much better for an older kid storytime than one for preschoolers.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

1063rd - 2011

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful picture book about polar bears, written before the time of global warming. Great illustrations.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations are lovely. I really appreciated how the author did not shy away from some of the less pleasant realities of polar bear life without getting overly graphic. Kids will get an accurate idea of wildlife without being traumatized.