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cloudyskies-starryheavens · 23 days ago

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The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

Basic Info

Book 1 of Seekers Year published: 2008 Page Length: 293 Genre: Fantasy Goodreads Link

Personal Info

Dates Read: 7/27/24-7/29/24 Read or Listened to?: Listened to How many times have I read this book before?: 1

Plot Summary (Spoiler Free)

Three bears, three stories. One black, one brown and one polar, each cub finds themselves on their own journey after being separated from their families. This quest will ultimately bring them together so they can fulfill their true destinies.

Full spoiler review under the cut!

Overall Look

Why I Chose to Read This Book: Well, I've read this book--and a few of its sequels--some years ago, and I remember quite enjoying them. Like many series I've started in the past, I simply began reading this series, and dropped it for no particular reason. I'd like to rectify this, and finish the story once and for all. Otherwise, I am a sucker for animal stories. I'm not the biggest fan of bears, but from what I can remember, the Warriors series by the Erin Hunter team was a little to overwhelming for little ten-year-old me. And Seekers only had around eight books or so out at the time, and I thought it would be an easier portal into the Erin Hunter books. Years later, I still remember it fondly, and chose to revisit it.

Overall Impression: I quite liked this book! It's one of those books that is broken up into the perspectives of each main character. The three bears really don't meet in this book (aside from Lusa finally finding Toklo at the very end). Each cub goes on his or her own journey, and the three perspectives change every three chapters. We start with Kallik the polar bear, go to Lusa the black bear, and finish with Toklo the grizzly bear, until we start over again and the cycle repeats. I have to say that I liked Kallik's story the least, but I was absolutely captivated by Lusa's adorable, loveable character. The story left me excited for more, and eager to see more of these characters!

Plot Notes:

Character Notes: Kallik: - Bio: Kallik is a polar bear living with her mother and brother in the frozen Hudson Bay. When Kallik's mother is suddenly killed by an orca, she is separated from her brother and forced to survive on her own. - How I Feel About Her: I'll be blunt, Kallik falls a little flat for me. I couldn't really get a sense of her personality, especially in this book. She's generally kind, and she's very driven to find her brother, but other than that, there isn't much more to her. I'll give her some grace since, for the entirety of the story, she is absolutely fighting for survival and almost utterly isolated, but I still wish we could have gotten a little more.

Lusa: - Bio: Lusa is a black bear living in the Vancouver Zoo in what is known as "The Bear Bowl". She lives with her mother, father, and a few other black bears in the exhibit with her. Intrigued by the idea of The Wild, Lusa escapes from the zoo after promising a mysterious grizzly bear that she would find her son. - How I Feel About Her: I love Lusa, she's hands down my favorite character. She's sweet, smart, compassionate, a little naive, and just all around a great character.

Toklo: - Bio: Toklo is a grizzly bear traveling the forests of southwestern Canada with his mother and sickly brother. After his brother dies, Toklo's mother disowns him, and abandons him to survive by himself. Haunted by his mother and brother, Toklo makes his way through the wilderness, where he discovers a strange, magical, slightly annoying, orphaned brown bear cub. - How I Feel About Him: I'm a little conflicted on Toklo. On one hand, I love how he's a little morally gray. He resents his sick and disabled brother for all the attention his mother gives him. And it's totally believable and heartbreaking to see this child character take out his frustrations about his mentally ill mother's neglect on his younger brother. His character fascinates me, and, even though I've read this book before, I was utterly not expecting to find something like him in this story. Yet, Toklo's signature bristly-ness can make him genuinely hard to actually like. He lashes out at other bears and is continuously rude to his only friend, Ujurak. I'm sure he'll get more development as the series goes on, but sometimes his ableist thoughts and fractious nature just irks me. But I love it?

Ujurak: - Bio: Ujurak is a shapeshifter who prefers to live as a bear. He is able to transform into any animal (even human) and learn more about them. He is on an important, mystical journey to a mysterious place of legend, and convinces Toklo to come along with him. - How I Feel About Him: Ujurak is a very intriguing character. Shrouded in mystery, Ujurak doesn't join the story until the last third, which surprised me. He's a sweet bear cub, and a great companion for Toklo, even if he does end up receiving the brunt of Toklo's verbal abuse. I actually forgot that he was a shapeshifter until it happened. I vaguely remembered his character, but what I remembered the most was me fighting with my friend over how to pronounce his name 😅. I'm very interested in what's to come with him!

What I Liked/What Worked: This is a great introduction to the story at large. The author(s) take their time building up the backstories of these bears and don't rush to throw them together. Each story had its own pace, although I will say that I enjoyed some a little more than others. Lusa and Toklo are standout characters for me, and I enjoyed many of the scenes they were involved in. The story ended with an excellent cliff hanger that had me itching for the sequel.

What I Didn't Like/What Didn't Work: This is a very solid story, although I will say that split-perspective books are generally not my favorites. My main issue with them is that one story is usually way more interesting to me than the other, and I'm forced to read the less interesting story(ies) so I can get to the story(ies) that I'm actually here for. Unfortunately, this book falls into that same trap.

Kallik's story was certainly the weakest for me. I think what set it back is that she had so little direction, and she's just too similar to Lusa. For Kallik, early on, she loses her mother and brother and vows to herself to find her brother. The problem is that she has no idea where her brother is, and she doesn't even know if he's alive or not. Therefore, she spends the entirety of her story in this book wandering northern Canada aimlessly, constantly on the brink of starving to death. Sure, she additionally has a vague notion of finding the legendary place of everlasting ice, as well as going on small side adventures. But it's just feels like a lot of nothing for me.

For Lusa, we spend a lot of time with her at the Bear Bowl and getting acquainted with her family. After meeting Toklo's mother, Oka, she decides to go off by herself into the wild (Canada), wandering somewhat aimlessly, on the hunt for Toklo, who, by the way, she has no idea where he is. And yet, with Lusa's character and the slow, steady build up of her story, it ends up being so much better for me than Kallik's. I genuinely think Kallik started her journey to find her brother/the land of everlasting ice way too early in the story with way too little direction. Her chapters felt like a drag to get through, with the same reports over and over. One thing I will say, though, is that I recently read Kathryn Lasky's Bears of the Ice series (the first three books that are out currently). That story also includes two polar bear cubs getting separated from their mother and going on a quest to find and save her. So a small part of my dislike for this story likely stems from the fact that it's very similar to me when compared with Bears of the Ice, even though this book came out long before those books did. Unfortunately, I did read Lasky's books before my reread of this one, but suffice to say, I'm just a little tired of the plotline.

The most notable thing that happens to Kallik, for me, is when she gets captured by humans and meets Nanuk. Now, I really liked the idea of Nanuk. Kallik is a poor, bedraggled orphan doomed to her own solitiude. Nanuk is a motherly bear who immediately takes Kallik under her wing and comforts her. I would have loved to have seen multiple chapters with Kallik and Nanuk traveling together. Kallik can serve as a daughter figure to Nanuk while Nanuk plays as a mother figure to Kallik, and this way, Nanuk can teach Kallik how to hunt (the constantly starving baby bear details were a little much for me as well, by the way), they can help each other to heal a little bit, and generally Nanuk could have just provided way more opportunities for Kallik to display her personality and character traits, while growing as a character. I would have loved Nanuk way more than that fox that followed Kallik for some time. But no, sadly we only get Nanuk for about two or three chapters, when she suddenly dies in a helicopter crash. Yeah. I'm not making this up. I could go on about the wasted potential Nanuk's character is, and how much more meaningful her death could have been if she'd just stuck around for a couple more chapters, but I don't want this to get too long.

A bit more of a lighthearted note here, I just wanted to say that when I read this book for the first time, I was absolutely stumped for the longest time about what the "Black Paths" and "firebeasts" were. I just could not get what they were supposed to be, and it drove me crazy for the longest time. I understood eventually, but I got embarrassingly far into the story before I realized that BlackPaths are roads and firebeasts are cars. I felt so stupid! I was so baffled as to what they were talking about, I actually thought they might be talking about either canon balls being fired or maybe that dragons were the firebeasts. And I thought to myself, "Why, if there are dragons in this book, are we focusing on bears??" Anyway, all this to say, sometimes the code-speak in these books aggravate me. Like, I can appreciate coming up with different terms for human things that animals don't understand. I love when they're clever work-arounds for bears or wolves or whatever-have-you who don't comprehend human creations. It makes sense that "car" might not be a word in the language of bears. But I don't know, sometimes I think the authors just assume we know what they're talking about and forget that some people (me) are kinda dumb sometimes. I remember it really taking me out of the story lol. So yeah, I wish we could have gotten more of a description, at least. You don't even need to say the word "car", just describe a car in a way that the goofy kids in the back can figure out. Anyway, I'm probably alone in this and I'm just outing myself for being dumb. I'll stop talking now.

The Theme(s) or Message(s) of This Book: People/humans are abusing our planet and make it hard for wildlife to live like they're meant to. We need to take a step back as a species and stop being so selfish by pursuing our own desires and disregarding the natural world that hurts as a result.

The Feelings This Book Evoked In Me: Intrigue and nostalgia. I loved the set up for the mysteries and journeys ahead. And being able to come back to this series is a great hit to my middle school memories, mindset, and interests.

Listening Experience: No real notes here, I thought the narrator did her job well. Sometimes her deep voice for big bears sounded a little silly to me, which made it hard for me to take them seriously, but otherwise, she did a good job! I especially loved the voice she gave Lusa, it's so cute!

Final Notes

Favorite Parts/Quotes/Passages: I think my favorite part was when Toklo meets Ujurak for the first time. It caught me so off guard! I genuinely forgot that there was magic in this book, and Ujurak's introduction to this story upped my interest and enjoyment in this book tenfold. I also really liked the part when Lusa escapes from the zoo. It was like a mini heist story!

Enjoyability: 7/10

Would I Ever Reread This Book?: Maybe. I'm not planning to any time soon, but I'm not wholly against it. I'm mostly just excited to continue reading the series and seeing how this story ends, as well as taking the journey to get there.

Do I Recommend This Book?: Yes! If it sounds like something you'd like, totally give it a read!

Who Would I Recommend This Book To? What Would I Like For Them To Take Away From It?: I would recommend this book to middle grade readers who like animal fantasy stories. Those who like Warriors, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Wings of Fire, etc. All I'd like for these people to take away from this story is enjoyment. I ate this subgenre up as a middle school wolf girl, and while I'm not sure if that's still an ongoing phenomenon, those who are like little me would love this story. Also the themes of environmentalism and respect for the wild are obviously important as well.

Overall Rating: 6/10

#three stars #seekers #the quest begins

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