There Are No Polar Bears Here! by Catherine Simpson

There Are No Polar Bears Here!, that's what everyone keeps telling Kerry when she tells them that she saw a polar bear, but nobody will believe her, until they finally see the polar bear for themselves.

Anna and I loved this book written by Newfoundland author Catherine Simpson and illustrated by Newfoundland artist Joanne Snook.  The only problem was that the library copy that we had wasn't taken care of by a previous borrower.  You could see that the pages had been stuck together at some point and when they were torn apart again the words were made unreadable on some pages.  Inspite of that, however, we really did enjoy the book.

A few years ago Catherine Simpson used to have a website that she maintained and you can still access pages from that site.  It was there that I found an author bio for Catherine Simpson and also a There Are No Polar Bears Here! page that suggests some things to do based on the book, but they are mostly for older, not younger, children.

There Are No Polar Bears Here! is a great book to read just for fun but it could also be used as part of a unit study on Polar Bears.  The Kids Zone Polar Bear page has a great page with info and links to polar bear puzzles, a polar bear craft and a coloring sheet.  The National Geographic Kids Polar Bear section would also be a great resource.