The Great Bear: The Misewa Saga, Book 2

Parents need to know that The Great Bear is the second installment of David A. Robertson's Misewa series. The series involves the adventures of Morgan, 13, and Eli, 12, two Cree foster kids in Winnipeg, Canada, who find a portal into a fantasy world, steeped in Indigenous culture and tradition, and populated by animal beings who speak, wear clothes, and walk upright. In Book 1, they helped their new friends defeat a villain who'd plunged their world into eternal winter, and now every night they go through the portal in their foster home's attic to another adventure. In their everyday world, the kids are dealing with assorted troubles: Eli's being bullied at school for his long hair, and Morgan's in a quandary when she gets unexpected information about her long-lost birth mother. In Misewa, there's talk of a villain who steals his victims' souls, and one of the characters falls prey to him. The story involves time travel to a point 20 years earlier than the events in Book 1, which enables the kids to reunite with younger versions of their animal-being friends, one of whom has died in the first volume. There's a lot of worry and speculation about the perils of time travel, from not telling your friends what you know about the future to unintentionally changing the course of events. The Great Bear of the title is an important character in Book 1, but here his younger self is more into stealing his neighbors' food and destroying their homes. There's a climactic combat scene that leaves some of the characters unconscious or otherwise injured. Mild language includes "sucks," "crap," "screw up," "oh my god." The shocking cliffhanger ending finds one character in mortal danger and others determined to save them in Book 3.