Walking the Bear by Nicola Davies

By Nicola Davies (author) , Annabel Wright (illustrator) Part of the Heroes of the Wild series

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Nicola Davies’s non-fiction stories are renowned for their skilful combination of great drama and important messages about conservation. Zaki’s family have always kept a performing bear and made money from showing her off. Zaki has two bear cubs he can train to dance but now the government is trying to stamp out the practice which is cruel to the bears and reducing the number of sloth bears surviving in the wild.

Zaki decides to return his bear cubs to the wild but it isn’t possible for the young bears to manage on their own in the wild. A touching story about the relationship between a boy and his bear cubs.

Aashiq lives in northern India. His father mistreats his wife and children and the family's dancing bears - an old female and the two new cubs who are to replace her. Aashiq wants all the bears to be free. With the help of his mother and sister, the old bear is taken to a sanctuary for retired bears while Aashiq runs away to the forest with the cubs.

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There he spends months teaching them how to survive in the wild. When he returns to his family, he finds his father's cruel rule has finally been overturned. His mother has a new way of making a living - and Aashiq and his sister can go to school at last.

Nicola Davies has visited all the countries she writes about - and information about real conservation projects is included at the back of each book. These books focus on children who live in countries where wild animals pose a threat, and on the solutions that will affect their lives and their future.

Click on the links below to download extracts of Nicola's other titles featuring wild animals in their native habitats..

The Lion Who Stole My Arm

It features beautiful black and white mixed media illustrations by Annabel Wright.

Nicola Davies is an award-winning author, whose many books for children include The Promise, Tiny, A First Book of Nature and King of the Sky. She has been writing for children for more than 20 years. Underlying all Nicola's writing is the belief that a relationship with nature is essential to every human being, and that now, more than ever, we need to renew that relationship. Her work has been published in more than 10 different languages and has won major awards in the UK, US, France, Italy and Germany. Nicola is the Children’s Laureate Wales 2025-2027.

She is a Zoology graduate, an expert in whales and bats, and has worked for the BBC Natural History Unit. She lives in Powys