Salt Bear decides, after a conversation with his best friend, Buddy the jackalope, who was scratching "behind his right prong horn just above his big floppy ear," that he needed a name. At the salt lick in Glade Park above the Colorado National Monument, he was the only animal whose name came from the name of his kind of bear rather than who he was as an individual. This starts Salt Bear off on his first journey to find out if other salt bears are alive. After all, being the only one of your kind of creature is a lot responsibility. In this journey Salt Bear first encounters a mysterious snow owl who frightens him with prophecies and then tries to ask a raven about salt bears. This first journey ends on a night of full moon on top of the Coke Oven monoliths as a sky-full of ravens circle in silver moonlight above his head. There he meets the oldest ravens alive who terrify him with their strange behavior of weirding prophecies. Thomas Davis has created an adventure story in the tradition of Watership Down or Wind in the Willows. As three friends go off into a wilderness toward the Gooseneck Country of Eastern Utah, they not only have to cross high mountains and rivers, but they also find themselves struggling through a landscape filled with terror and death and the madness of a great grizzly bear and mountain lion. In the end Salt Bear finds out who he is. Buddy and Old Rombo, the cactus buck, also discover the magic of who they are in a classic tale of the American west. A widely published poet Davis's language sings with powerful descriptions and memorable scenes designed to engage any reader who still has adventure in their bones and a feeling of excitement about who they might be in life. James Janko, winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Prize for the Novel and numerous other literary awards, has said of Davis's writing that "Here you will find language and story that mesmerize the reader, that transport one to places where words and stories are born." This is Young Adult literature at its finest. With moments of humor as well as adventure, it will appeal to those who are on the cusp of their life's journey, whose imaginations dance when they are stimulated to think about who they are and what they might become.
About the Author: After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Thomas Davis began his career by teaching English for one of the first Indian Controlled Schools in the United States, the Menominee County Community School. He was a key figure in the founding of Menominee Indian School District on the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. He has been highly successful at raising money to better the lives of American Indians through educational opportunities. During his career he has worked for six tribal colleges across the United States in leadership positions and been a leader in STEM education both in Wisconsin and nationally. He has served as President of Lac Courtes Oreilles Ojibwa Community College in Hayward, Wisconsin and Little Priest Tribal College in Nebraska. He helped found College of the Menominee Nation. Before retirement he was Provost for Navajo Technical University, which has campuses in New Mexico and Arizona. He helped found a number of national and international organizations that have affected the lives of American Indians and indigenous peoples from around the world. Davis has published several books, including Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit (State University of New York Press 2000), which describes the forestry management and sustainable development of the Menominee people. Salt Bear (2012) is a story about mythical creatures from the American West. Inside the Blowholes (2013) is about Anglo and Navajo adolescents who find dragons who have fled extinction underground in New Mexico's El Malpais area. The Alkali Cliffs (2014) is about a poor family fighting against a big bank and industry. Bennison Books, a British publisher, published The Weirding Storm, A Dragon Epic (2017), a formal epic poem about a young girl and the dragons that help her even as conflicts between humans and dragons move inexorably toward human/dragon war. He also has a blog with his wife, the poet artist Ethel Mortenson Davis, at www.fourwindowspress.com.