“In all the com­mo­tion, I noticed Shi­mon pack­ing his pock­etknife, which accom­pa­nied him wher­ev­er he went. ​‘Those Nazis, I hate them,’ he mum­bled. ​‘Nobody is going to come near us, and if they do, I don’t even know what I’ll do to them.’ That’s what my strong, brave, broth­er said, so it’s no won­der I admire him. When I’m with him, noth­ing bad can hap­pen to me.” This excerpt express­es how sev­en-year-old Ichu feels, as his fam­i­ly is expelled by the Nazis from their vil­lage in Poland, and exiled across the Russ­ian bor­der, where their unbe­liev­able jour­ney through the Sovi­et Union begins.

​“As the sto­ry moves from 1939 Poland and first-per­son expe­ri­ences and Jew­ish cul­ture there to a gru­el­ing Russ­ian win­ter in 1942, then to mod­ern-day (2019) Hol­land, read­ers will find all the char­ac­ters pro­vide thought-pro­vok­ing expe­ri­ences… Mod­ern char­ac­ters attempt to under­stand their place in the fam­i­ly his­to­ry based on new­ly emer­gent knowl­edge about the past, lend­ing How to Hunt a Bear an excel­lent sense of inter­con­nect­ed her­itages and Jew­ish cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences.” (Mid-west Book Review)