Basic Life Advice From My Students

Also, a book about a bear on San Juan island

Oct 13, 2024

A book to read: BEAR by Julia Phillips

You know those titles that trick you, like how John Green’s LOOKING FOR ALASKA is not about the state of Alaska?1

BEAR is not like that.

The titular2 bear in this story is not a metaphor or a town named “Bear” or anything like that. There’s an actual bulky bear, with claws and fur and cute ears and everything.

Bear is by Julia Phillips, but the picture of the book is by me, as are all pictures in this post.

So it’s a book about a bear, but it’s also a book about sisters, and how hard it is to be an adult, and also how much the pandemic sucked for people on the edges of poverty.

Normally we chat about historical books around here, but obviously this is not a historical book…unless the waning days of the pandemic count as “history.” The book is set on San Juan Island, so of course I was going to read it. I’ll always make an exception to my historical book rule for novels set in the Pacific Northwest.

BEAR features two sisters, supposedly as close as sisters can be. Sam and Elena are in their late twenties/early thirties, still living at home to care for their Mother who has been dying for the past decade. Not willing to leave the family home until their Mother passes, the sisters are stuck on the expensive touristy island living on paltry wages, trying to stay on top of the medical bills and debt that mounted during the shut-down days of the pandemic.

Sam, the youngest sister, is particularly unhappy with her lot in life. She refuses:

friends
meaningful connections with interested guys
any attempt to improve her lot in life
friendly offers to help from neighbors
responsibility
attempts to alleviate the bone-crushing boredom of her life
any hope of short-term happiness

Some reviews whine that Sam is too whiny, but I disagree. I think the author does a perfect job walking that line with Sam’s character. Sam almost insufferable, but we readers get why she is who she is. Sam is a deliberately messy character because that’s what the story needs.

Anyway, Sam’s sister and mom are her world. Sam’s dreams all revolve around the one day that she and her sister can sell their wealthy island property and live a life free of worries somewhere on the mainland. This dream is all hinged on her mom’s death, so that’s awkward.

One day, as Sam is being miserable as usual from the ferry deck where she works, she sees a bear swimming, right there in the saltwater passages of Puget Sound. It’s pretty thrilling, to see a bear (much more thrilling that orcas - Sam sees those all the time). Then the bear shows up at their doorstep, grunting at their front door and pawing at the siding of their house. It’s an awesome experience, in the traditional sense of the word awesome: awe-inspiring, scary, exhilarating, and miraculous in a possibly awful way.

The story unfolds from there, as the sisters have more awful and awesome run-ins with the bear. Secrets they keep from each other drip from the scenes at a pace just quick enough to keep the reader turning pages. I was totally engrossed, reading the book in one gulp over a single weekend this summer.

A place to explore: San Juan Island, Washington

At the risk of being one of the tourists who annoy Sam on the ferry, if you are ever in the Pacific Northwest and have an open day or two to travel, you simply must go to the islands. BEAR is set on San Juan Island, but there dozens of islands in the watery straits between Anacortes, WA and Vancouver Island, BC which collectively are also called the San Juan Islands. Don’t be confused.

On San Juan Island you can…

Visit a haunted hotel on Roche Harbor

Go camping at San Juan County Park, where parts of Practical Magic were filmed

Sunset over the bay at San Juan Country Park.

Shop for touristy things and ice cream cones while you are waiting for your ferry at Friday Harbor

Watch for whales at Lime Kiln Point State Park

Visit English Camp, the site of The Pig War, where a British pig rooting in an American garden nearly led to open warfare between the USA and Britain.

Go hiking

Take a gorgeous ferry ride. You probably won’t see a bear.

If you want to see a bear, check out Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Last time we went there were two bears swimming around RIGHT in front of us. It was pretty cool.

A lesson to teach AND a spoiler for the book: Basic life advice

As longtime readers of this newsletter know, I usually try to tie together a book, a trip, and a lesson plan together. The book BEAR is not full of fodder for World History teachers. The main lesson of the book can be summed up in one basic piece of life advice:

Picture drawn by my daughter. She’s 10 and wants to state for the record that this is not her best piece of art.

My basic life advice coupled with my daughter’s drawing did indeed give me an idea for my classroom. Yay.

Every day, I give my students a “Do Now” question that they answer at the beginning of class while I take attendance and solve all those small emergencies that students bring to the beginning of every class period

“I need a charger!” “Can I go back to last period, I left my glasses there!” “Can I get a pass to the nurse/office/bathroom?” “Someone is smoking in the bathroom!” ***sounds of crying***, etc.

Yesterday, thinking of my “Don’t Feed the Bears” advice, this was the Do Now question:

My students learned about Polynesian exploration during the beginning of the week and we just started learning about how the gold/salt trade across the Sahara Desert enriched the Kingdom of Ghana. Here’s some basic life advice from my students: