The story Touching Spirit Bear, by Ben Mikaelsen, is a fictional story. Cole Matthews is the main character and he’s struggling. He got himself into a lot of trouble and now he has to pay by going to an island. It’s almost like a rehab for children who have gone on the “wrong path”. In the book, we see that Cole changes throughout the story and so does his family.
Cole Matthews is a kid with extremely poor behavior. He has an abusive father, and a mother that’s either too drunk to notice, or too lazy to stand up for her son. As a result, Cole terrorizes and bullies children from his school. One night, Cole decided he wanted to steal from a store, but then the owner heard something and started coming towards Cole. Cole ran away leaving the police with no trace of the culprit. He wanted to brag to the other children about how cool he was and how he was so tuff.  One kid named Peter told on him, but that was the biggest mistake of his life. Once again, Cole got in trouble with the law and was sent to the island. Cole goes through so many trials, meets new people, and almost died.
I really liked the book and really thought the author did a great job making the story interesting and moving. Not only is the book compelling, but it shows no matter what your past is, you can always fix it. To conclude my thoughts, I just want to say that Touching Spirit Bear is a very great book and that every person should read it.