Polar Bears

The polar bear is the biggest and most powerful of the animals that are able to survive the hostile climate of the Arctic. Cubs are born during the cold dark winter, even though they start out with only a thin coat of fur and weigh a little over one pound. The mothers raise and teach them so they may grow and survive in the wild. Here is information about how polar bears swim and hunt, how they keep warm and dry, and the many other ways they adapt to their environment."Gibbons describes how polar bears are adapted to the harsh climate where temperatures can fall to minus-30 degrees Fahrenheit...Handsome watercolor paintings show big and baby bears hunting, eating, swimming, and sleeping. She is especially facile at capturing the many shades of white in the bear’s fur, and the blue white texture of the ice flows. Gibbons also captures the dignity of the bears, almost hunted to extinction in the 1970s and now making a comeback in the wild, while including the details children so enjoy." —Kirkus ReviewsGail Gibbons "has taught more preschoolers and early readers about the world than any other children's writer-illustrator," according to the Washington Post. Winner of the 2010 Regina Award, she has written and illustrated more than fifty books for Holiday House. She lives in Corinth, Vermont.