Seekers #4: The Last Wilderness By Erin Hunter

Seekers #4: The Last Wilderness
Erin Hunter
HarperCollins (2010)
ISBN 9780060871314
Reviewed by Ben Weldon (age 11) for Reader Views (02/10)

“Seekers #4: The Last Wilderness” by Erin Hunter is the story of four bears, Toklo, a grizzly bear; Kallik, a polar bear; Lusa, a black bear; and Ujurak, a shape-shifter whose natural shape is a grizzly cub. When Ujurak, at the time in the form of a goose, was weakened and almost killed after accidentally eating a fishhook, his friends weren’t sure what to do. They eventually decided to take Ujurak to a friendly “flat-face” (human) healer who lived in a small village in the wilderness. But when more flat-faces came and took Ujurak away in a “metal bird,” (airplane or helicopter) his friends tried to follow the metal bird but were too slow. Will they ever see Ujurak again?

When the four friends finally reached the final wilderness they thought they would be able to live in peace forever; little did they know how wrong they were. When Ujurak tried a new way of hunting geese by shifting into a goose, things went horribly wrong. He forgot to shift back into a bear when he was with the geese and ended up flying off with them. When he and the flock stopped to eat, he got a fishhook lodged in his throat and was at the brink of death when his friends found him and got him (in human form) to a flat-face healer. But when more flat-faces arrived and took Ujurak away, they didn’t know if they would ever see him again. Will they be able to find Ujurak in the maze of flat-face dens and hubbub?

A neat bonus to the book is that there is a cool Seekers website address given that has all sorts of interesting information on the characters and the author. Erin Hunter is actually not one, but four people. They all love bears and cats and together wrote the Warriors series.

I would recommend “Seekers #4: The Last Wilderness” to people who like bears and adventure. Once you pick up this book you won’t want to put it down until you finish it. The book ended on a cliff hanger, like many of Erin Hunter’s books, and I can’t wait for the next one.