If You Meet a Bear

By Martin Glaz Serup Linda Bondestam Malin Kivelä

A quirky field guide on what to do if you encounter a bear in the forest that encourages to talk about the relationship between humans and animals. A must-read for every aspiring outdoor adventurer!  Are you prepared for a bear encounter? This amusing picture book attempts to offer advice about what to do and not do if you come upon a bear while venturing into the forest. Should one run away, climb high or maybe just offer your honey jar to the bear as soon as possible? Several facts to remember about this furry creature.   Many of us have attended scout camp, wondered in the berry forest or been on an excursion and fear of bumping into a bear. In this book filled with offbeat humor, authors Malin Kivelä and Martin Glaz Serup advise a child who actually encounters one. When faced with such a challenge, good advice is precious. This laugh-out-loud, how-to guide is brought to life by awarded illustrator Linda Bondestam’s expressive artwork that captures the contrast between the dangers of the dark forest and exuberant storytelling.   Published in In Swedish by Förlaget M, in Danish by Jensen & Dalgaard and in Finnish by Teos.       

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About the author

Martin Glaz Serup (1978) is an awarded Danish author who lives in Copenhagen.He has published several children’s books, poetry collections, chapbooks-essays and prose work in seven countries.Serup is a teacher of literary studies at the University of Copenhagen and offers writing courses. The author also works as a literary critic for different publications. 

Linda Bondestam (b.1977) studied to become an illustrator at Kingston University in the United Kingdom.Bondestam has illustrated dozens of children’s books for Finnish and Swedish publishers, and her books have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Belorussian, Croatian, Danish, English, Finnish, German, Latvian, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Turkish and Ukrainian. She is one of the most prominent children’s book illustrators in the Nordic countries.She has been nominated for the prestigious Finlandia Junior Prize three times, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award six times. She has also been recognized with nominations for the Nordic Council’s Children and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2013 and 2021, and the August Prize in 2016, 2019 and 2021.Bondestam’s collaboration with Ulf Stark on Animals That No One Has Seen Except Us was awarded the Snöbollen Prize for Swedish Picture Book of the Year in 2016, and the Nordic Council’s Children and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2017. Bondestam was also the first recipient of the Vanessa Prize (Vanessapriset) in 2016. Bondestam’s own title, My Life at The Bottom, was a pick for the White Raven Catalogue in 2021. Bondestam's picture book Chop Chop earned her the 2025 August Prize - Swedish Children’s Book of the Year.She has been sitting on chair number 11 in the Swedish Children’s Book Academy since 2019.

Malin Kivelä (b. 1974) is a Finland-Swedish writer and playwright from Helsinki. She has published novels, children’s books and plays and also translated fiction from Finnish into Swedish. Her works have received several prizes and nominations, including the YLE Literature Prize for Annanstans and Hjärtat in 2013 and 2019, as well as a prize from the Swedish Academy in 2018. In her writing she is particularly interested in chasing the smallest nuances which might not even have a name, and in exploring the realms and limits of the written word as well as the physical dimensions and effects of text.