The Bear - Format B - Softcover

"Bold...shocking...distinctive...the reward is striking images that stick in the mind, a blend of Anna's interpretations of events and the reader's imagination. It was even more haunting the second time around" (Independent)

"Stylistically impressive and deeply moving" (Glamour)

"A taut and touching story of how a child’s love and denial become survival skills" (Charlotte Rogan, author of The Lifeboat)

"This expertly crafted novel could do for camping what Jaws did for swimming.This agonizing odyssey of loss and being lost also has humor...The book’s anguished yet hopeful ending provides a touching terminus for Anna and Stick’s journey to adulthood" (People)

"The Bear had me up all night... Claire Cameron is an absolute master" (Herman Koch, Author of The Dinner)

Longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange)

Anna is five. Her little brother, Stick, is almost three. They are camping with their parents in Algonquin Park, in three thousand square miles of wilderness. It's the perfect family trip. But then Anna awakes in the night to the sound of something moving in the shadows. Her father is terrified. Her mother is screaming. Then, silence.

Alone in the woods, it is Anna who has to look after Stick, battling hunger and the elements to stay alive. Narrated by Anna, this is white-knuckle storytelling that captures the fear, wonder and bewilderment of our worst nightmares – and the power of one girl’s enduring love for her family.