Will Hobbs is an author that I will frequently recommend to boys, boys who have already discovered the character Brian from Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet. If they’ve already read every Paulsen novel on the shelf, Hobbs is an excellent direction to take. And Hobbs is a prolific writer himself. These authors’ books pit boys against themselves and nature – survival is the name of the game. These books are excellent for the 4th and 5th graders and work well for the older reluctant readers. I think Hobbs should be recommended reading for every Boy Scout. Bearstone, a Caudill Nominee, and its sequel, Beardance, easily met my expectations for real life action and adventure.
In Bearstone, we meet young Cloyd Atcitty, a Native American from the Ute tribe. His mother died giving birth to him, his father didn’t stick around afterwards, and so Cloyd and his sister were raised by their grandmother. Cloyd grew up shepherding his grandmother’s goats until the tribe decided to send him and his sister away to boarding school. Cloyd misses his grandmother, his sister and his home at White Mesa. When he isn’t deliberately failing school, he is running away from the family house towards home.
Cloyd’s social worker attempts to redeem him one last time by sending him to live on a ranch over summer vacation. This is where the book begins. Walter Landis is a farmer, an elderly man who has let his ranch go over the last year while mourning the death of his beloved wife. The social worker brings Cloyd to help Walter with the farm chores. There is a bit of Divine Guidance involved. Walter understands the boy and his Ute upbringing. Walter knows when to ask questions and when not to pry. He gains the boy’s confidence and loyalty quietly. Cloyd desires to help and prove his worth to this tiny, frail old man.
The book does an excellent job of showing how miscommunication and lack of communication can destroy a good thing. Silence can go too far and mistakes are made. Cloyd, out of anger, destroys not only his own hard work, but also Walter’s prize peach trees. Fortunately, Walter understands the boy and more importantly forgiveness. Their friendship is restored when Walter invites Cloyd into the Colorado Mountains. Walter has his mind set on gold and Cloyd has his mind set on Grizzlies. Here, the true adventure begins.
Now, I enjoyed Bearstone, but Beardance is better. If it weren’t for the fact that Bearstone establishes the characters so very well, I’d say skip to the sequel. In Beardance, Cloyd and Walter are headed back into the mountains the following summer – a year has transpired. Walter still has gold in his mind and metal detector in his pack. Cloyd still has grizzlies on his mind and is given good reason to believe that a mother and her three cubs are roaming the mountainsides.
With the help of a Native American wildlife biologist who calls herself Ursa, Cloyd not only discovers the grizzly family, but is able to track them. The two watch in horror as the mother and one of her cubs is killed by an avalanche. Cloyd makes it his job to see that the two remaining cubs survive the winter in the hopes that the government will send more grizzlies to help repopulate the species in Colorado. You see, a grizzly hasn’t been seen in Colorado since the 1950s. And Cloyd’s been dreaming of bears. He feels he is connected to them in a special way. By saving them, he will be forgiving himself.
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