choice book report summary.

For my choice book report I read Touching Spirit Bear. This book is about a fifteen year old boy named Cole Matthews who is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. All his life he has been a raging bully who is always rude to others because of what he has been through. His dad was a serious alcoholic who beat him frequently. Cole has been through tons of therapists, but none of them seem to help him. However, he life seemed to take a turn for the worse after a classmate named Peter Driscal snitches on Cole for breaking into a hardware store. Cole wants revenge on Peter, so he unrelentingly beats Peter. Now Cole is either sentenced to jail, or he must join Circle Justice, which will hopefully put things in the right spot. After three weeks of that, and no improvements, Cole is sentenced to one year on a small Alaskan Island.

    On this island Cole must learn to care for himself and take responsibility. Two Tribe Elders name Edwin and Garvey arrive to the island before Cole. They unpack food boxes and set up a small wood cabin to sleep in. Once Cole arrives, Edwin and Garvey warn him about the legend of the white spirit bear who roams the island. Cole claims that if he crosses paths with this bear, he would kill it. He is not afraid of this myth and will not worry.
     Later that day, the two men part from the island, leaving Cole alone. His anger starts to boil inside of him once he starts thinking about all his life how everyone would just want to get rid of him. He is thinking about how happy everyone must be now that he is finally gone. Cole sleeps soundly that night, but is woken up a couple times by the rain.
      The next day when Cole wakes up he decides to take a walk around the island. As he is walking, he noticed a massive white bear, which he assumes must be the Spirit Bear. He starts to mess with it, by throwing things at it. He wants the bear to fear him. As Cole turns around for the last time to throw another rock at it, he notices that the bear is gone. Later in the day, Cole goes to the beach of the island to attempt swimming away. He runs into the Spirit Bear, but this time he tries to kill it. He dashes right up to the bear and tries lodging his spear that he had made into it. This did nothing. The bear deflected the spear with it’s paw and starts mauling Cole. Helpless, the bear breaks multiple ribs, his pelvis, an arm and a leg. After the bear thinks it has taught Cole a lesson, he runs of. Cole is laying helpless on the dirt. He is drifting in and out of conciseness. Once to starts to get hungry he eats anything he can find, including a live mouse and his own vomit. Cole is on the verge of death, when he is rescued by Edwin and Garvey.
     Cole is brought back to Minneapolis for another six months of Circle Justice and to recover from a brutal mauling. Cole is going through some changes, both attitude wise and physically. Cole is forced for another time back at the island. This time accompanied by Edwin and Garvey. Cole builds his own shelter and learns to take responsibility for himself. Edwin teaches Cole the ways of the island. Cole takes a huge, heavy rock up a steep hill everyday, and rolls it back down. This make his stronger. He also goes swimming in a small pond everyday. The water in the pond is below freezing, which teaches Cole to relax even in the toughest situations. Cole goes though all these tough challenges which build him up as a person and makes him stronger every day. Touching Spirit Bear was a good book and I would recommend it to a lot of teens.