An American Indian girl, living on the edge of a European settlers' village, somewhere in 19th-century northern North America, takes a white boy out for a walk along the lakeside to glimpse a bear as it emerges from hibernation, but they are caught out by the spring thaw and drift off on an ice floe. He is, of course, completely incompetent at survival, but after she has started to show him that they can survive together, they encounter two adult Indian women and, fearing sudden death as an outcaste, she flees, leaving him to be captured. The subsequent trek, with mysterious bears and wolves in the forest, and an increasing trust between the boy and his captors, is told from his point of view almost to the end before we track back to find out what had happened to the girl. I enjoyed this. MB 19-iv-2021 ( )