This companion book to the authors' Sibert award-winning Honeybee explores the life and habitat of a majestic endangered species through dramatic text and sumptuous illustration.

April in the Arctic . . .
Cold winds send snow clouds scuttling across the sky.
Temperatures barely nudge above freezing.
But every now and again,
The cloud cover parts,
The sun shines down,
And the frozen world stretches awake.

As spring approaches in the Arctic, a mother polar bear and her two cubs tentatively emerge from hibernation to explore the changing landscape. When it is time, she takes her cubs on a forty-mile journey, back to their home on the ice. Along the way, she fends off wolves, hunts for food, and swims miles and miles.

This companion book to Honeybee and Giant Squid features the unique talents of Fleming and Rohmann on a perennially popular subject. Eric Rohmann's magnificent oil paintings feature (as in Honeybee) a spectacular gatefold of the polar landscape.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Candace Fleming is the author of more than thirty distinguished books for children including Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera, winner of an Orbis Pictus Honor and the Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book, and Cubs in the Tub: The True Story of the Bronx Zoo's First Woman Zookeeper. Her book The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh received the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. She lives in Chicago.

Eric Rohmann is the award-winning author and/or illustrator of many beloved books for children. He received a Caldecott Honor for Time Flies and a Caldecott medal for My Friend Rabbit. He also collaborated with Candace Fleming on Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera, winner of an Orbis Pictus Honor and the Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book. They live in Chicago, Illinois.