Can Bears Ski?

The debut children's book from Ted Hughes award-winning poet Raymond Antrobus that tracks a father-and-son journey into the discovery and management of deafness.

This new paperback edition includes an illustrated BSL alphabet.

Boy Bear cannot hear Dad Bear coming to wake him up in the morning but he can feel the floor vibrate with his heavy footsteps. He can only grasp little bits of what his teacher says to him at school. He cannot catch what his friends are laughing at. And, all the time, Boy Bear keeps hearing the question, "Can Bears ski?" What does it mean? With the support of Dad Bear, Boy Bear visits an audiologist and, eventually, he gets hearing aids. Suddenly, he understands the question everyone has been asking him: "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Raymond Antrobus, the award-winning poet of The Perseverance, draws on his own experience to show how isolating it can be for a deaf child in a hearing world. But through his lyrical and moving words, matched with Polly's stunning imagery, he also shows how many ways there are to communicate love. With a solid network, Boy Bear will find his place in the world.

About the Author

Raymond Antrobus became the first ever poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre, and in January 2021 he was awarded an MBE for his services to literature. He has also won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Ted Hughes Award, PBS Winter Choice, and a Sunday Times & The Guardian Poetry Book of the Year Awards. Can Bears Ski? is his first picture book.

About the Illustrator

Polly Dunbar is the author-illustrator of Red, Red, Red, A Lion Is a Lion and the bestselling, award-winning picture book Penguin. She is also the illustrator of My Dad’s a Birdman, written by David Almond, and Shoe Baby and Pat-a-Cake Baby, written by her mother, Joyce Dunbar.