My character Polo the Bear, climate change messenger and globetrotter extraordinaire has some important news!
He is now officially Captain Polo: concerned polar bear, world citizen, adventurer, explorer and climate change educator.
Captain Polo recently went through an Inuit initiation ceremony by special invitation from his Inuit friends. Polo completed the initiation following ancient Inuit rites of passage, and because of his global adventure (see ‘The Adventures of Polo the Bear: a Story of Climate Change‘) he was named Nanoq – Inuit for ‘Captain of the Seas’.
However, the Inuit shaman agreed that to the outside world, Polo was to be known simply as Captain Polo.
The original inspiration behind choosing the name ‘Polo’ came mostly from the historical traveller, Marco Polo, who in the 13th century trekked all the way from Italy to Mongolia to establish trade routes.
The name also sounds a bit like ‘Pole’, as in ‘North Pole’.
To celebrate his promotion to Captain, I’m working on Polo’s next adventure, the sequel to the first book.
This time, I did some first hand research to get the best cover possible for the new book. I asked for the help of teacher friends and dozens of other people for their opinions. Two of the teachers organized focus groups with the target age range, and despite COVID19 lockdown, we managed to get direct feedback from nearly 100 kids.
The result is this cover.