Keep Up, Katmai

Four six-month-old grizzly cubs follow their mom in the springtime. They leave the safety of their den to catch fish, forage for berries, and keep out of danger’s way. The photographs show the cubs exploring their environment and home while keeping close to each other and their mom. They travel down river banks, step onto rocks and, at times, look like they are playing follow the leader with each other. The smallest female cub is named Katmai, and, on some of the pages in the story, she lags behind the others because she's tired and not as fast as the other cubs. But she does show she helps with dinner (holding the freshly caught fish), and she can fall asleep and rest (sometimes in the mud) just as fast as her siblings. Although there are many photographs of them catching and eating fish, the scenes are not gory or frightening. The book ends with the cubs’ rolling in mud to cool off and falling asleep on mom while she is nursing them.

Back material includes two pages of questions and answers in which the photographer explains how he captured the photographs of the four cubs (the number being rare in a grizzly family) in Katmai National Park over two days, all the while staying safe and capturing the bears’ natural behaviors.