Bear

Kiri Lightfoot is an NZ-based author and actor. She has worked as a scriptwriter in children's television and as an actor both for theatre and screen. She continues to work part-time in television and also runs poetry reading sessions in aged-care homes and hospitals with charity 'Active Arts'. Kiri worked for many years as a telephone counsellor with Youthline and as a volunteer mentor in an alternative education school. Bear is her first novel for young adults and was inspired by working with young people at this time. Kiri is now a mother of three school-aged children and lives in central Auckland. Her previous books are picture books: Ming's Iceberg, illustrated by Kimberly Andrews (Scholastic 2021) and Every Second Friday, illustrated by Ben Galbraith (Hodder Children's Books 2008), a shortlist in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards 2009.

'I really enjoyed this story. I absolutely adored Jasper - what a great character and such a brilliant narrator - so smart and funny and flawed. This is such an important story and I hope it finds its way into the hands and hearts of so many young people. It is such a tender and wickedly humorous exploration of mental illness and grief and anger and how we define ourselves.' KAREN FOXLEE bestselling author of Lenny's Book of Everything'Wonderfully fresh and engaging.' Tessa Duder'Very funny, very well written and an accurate look into a teenager's changing world. Get it for your reading teen.' Linda Thompson, NZ Herald