In this chapter of Touching Spirit Bear, Cole realizes how to become invisible. This is when he has his eureka moment. He knows what he has to do in order to see Spirit Bear again. Find out if he is successful in doing so.

Because he’s grown up with alcoholic parents and a father who beats him regularly, Cole is angry and thinks that violence is the only way to solve problems. His memories of his family aren’t happy—in fact, he remembers distinctly the times when his father beat him up: As Cole kept screaming, his dad kept hitting him.

In Chapter 10 of Touching Spirit Bear Cole is still stuck after fighting a bear. He is injured and unable to get up. He needs to defecate and does so, but is unable to get away from it. Mosquitoes attack him and the baby birds he saw earlier are all dead on the ground nearby.

In Chapter 15 we learned that after Cole is released from the hospital, he is placed back into the detention center until the Circle decides his fate. Cole bides his time in the detention center, where Edwin comes to visit him often.

In Touching Spirit Bear, the cake, whose ingredients only taste good when they are mixed together, represents the things in Cole’s life that make him angry but are also part of what makes his life good when viewed as a whole. The lightning represents Cole’s uncontrollable anger that is threatening his life.

Lesson Summary Major themes such as violence, personal transformation, and isolation show up in the novel Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen. The story follows a young man named Cole Matthews who is subjected to physical abuse at home by his father, which results in him lashing out at others.

From the novel Touching Spirit Bear Cole Matthews is not your average teenage boy, he is a juvenile delinquent. If you look at Cole you may see a sweet, innocent, kind, caring boy! He has a baby face, he’s 15, and uses it to get his way! Cole has committed many crimes in his life.

At. oow are the most prized possessions of a clan. At. oow is literally translated as “an owned or purchased object” and can refer to land or sacred sites, celestial bodies such as the moon and sun, names, stories, songs, spirits and crests.

Nathaniel Blackwood is the lawyer whom Cole’s dad hires to defend Cole after he assaults Peter. Blackwood is a stiff man who, in Cole’s opinion, must starch his underwear, judging by just how stiffly he conducts himself.

Devil’s Club

Chapters 3-5, pp. 26-46, Study Guide

Relentless Responsiveness. Garvey is introduced as a ”gravelly-voiced” Tlingit Indian parole officer from Minneapolis.