A Boy and a Bear in a Boat

The Little Prince is sometimes considered -- mistakenly, I think -- a children's book. Just because a book is about a child, or about the lessons we want children to learn or about the truths we hope they do not forget as they age, it doesn't make it a book for children. That is, in the end, the reluctant conclusion I reached about (the in some ways truly remarkable) A BOY AND A BEAR IN A BOAT.

To be fair, I liked the book. I appreciate when authors don't tie themselves in knots justifying the odd truths of their fictional worlds. We don't know why a bear is captaining a boat, or why a boy is getting on board, or where he hopes to get to -- these things just are. We don't need to know why.

Yet in the end, the lack of reasons -- of goals -- means that the book loses momentum. The journey becomes too interior, a journey of acceptance and personal development. Such a journey is important, but perhaps not so much to the 10-year-old who still hopes personal development means she will in fact become a pirate king or an Arctic explorer. Teenagers begin to understand that most of their adventures will be inside themselves, and grown-ups too, if we do not forget, know that our inner landscapes are where we will do most of our exploring.

I enjoyed the whimsy of the sandwiches, the mercurial personality of the bear and the growing contentment both characters felt with the fact that their journey would have no end, that the journey was the destination. It's also worth repeating that A BOY AND A BEAR IN A BOAT frequently made me think of A Little Prince, which is high praise indeed.

It just doesn't mean I would suggest it to a child.

A boy approaches a bear in a boat and asks how long it will take to get "just to the other side". Well, apparently longer than a three-hour tour, because the bear runs into "unforseen anomalies". The duo drift for days and days, subsisting on bizarre sandwiches and, since this is a British author, tea. They run into storms and giant sea monsters, have to catch fish, and end up on a weirdly antique ship after their smaller boat floats away. When that, too, is destroyed, the two sail off into the sunset with the boy using the bear as a boat.