Rest in Peace Little Eisbarbaby

 

So yesterday, while reading an article on Hunger Games's star Jennifer Lawrence, I saw one of the side headlines was that Knut the polar bear had died (  see http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20475069,00.html  for more information).  To honor the memory of German's  beloved Eisbarbaby  ( German for " polar bear cub"), I felt like mentioning a book I used about two year ago for a program on the animals of the North and South Poles.


 Knut: How One Little Bear Captivated the World introduces to the beginning of Knut. Born Dec 5, 2006 at Zoo Berlin, he and an unnamed twin were raised by  zoo keeper Thomas Dorflein ( October 13, 1963 –  September 22,2008) after being abandon by their mother.  Sadly, the twin died a few day later due to an infection, so Thomas took to raise the bear that the world would know as "Knut" ( and Thomas selected that name thirty-two days after his birth because he felt the bear fit that name).

Written by Craig Hatkoff and his daughters Juliana and Isabella ( who wrote the books about Owen the hippo and Mzee the tortoise), Knut features lovable pictures of the cub and "dad", from exchaging a kiss to  learning to swim, along with facts about polars bears, prounuciation of German words and terms,  and how to keep their environment safe from global warming.  If you love animals, especially polar bears, you'll love this
 book.


Knut: How One Little Bear Captivated the World
Ages: 6 and up
Lexile: 950
***** ( 5 stars)

 On a personal note, when I read parts of this book for a program on animals of the North and South Poles ( and a few school visits for the library's Read-a-thon program), the kids love it. They even thought he was still cute when I showed them what he looked like as a grown bear.  RIP Knut.