Forgiveness In Touching Spirit Bear By Ben Mikaelsen

“We need to realize that our path to transformation is through our mistakes. We're meant to make mistakes, recognize them, and move on to become unlimited.” (Yehuda Berg). A character metamorphosis is superficially impossible; it can only occur if one has such tenacity and passion, often unpossessed by most people. Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, however, chronicles the journey of Cole Matthews as a “lost cause” into a rekindled and hopeful teenager after his experience on a remote island as punishment is over. Cole’s corrective actions against indulging in harmful and indelible actions redefines the true catalyst for healing: forgiveness. Beginning with his erroneous and detrimental mindset inciting his anger, his character change starts with his sudden epiphany and self-awareness, and then his

Cole, an adolescent delinquent, adopts a fallacious tenet that fuels his anger: life, the people and actions around him, is a facade. To begin with, Cole commits a lot of crimes throughout his teenage years. His most recent crime, punishing Peter, a natural target for bullies, resulted in indelible damage to both Peter’s brain physically, and Cole’s personality mentally. “Cole jumped on him again and started smashing his skull against the sidewalk… It took six other students to pull him away finally. By then Peter was cowering on the blood-smeared sidewalk, sobbing. Cole laughed and one at him even as he was held back. Nobody crossed Cole Matthews and got away with it.” (7). Blinded because of his mentality, vengeance is just one action that Cole portrays of his unbridled animosity towards the world. By finding himself in trouble, Cole seizes opportunities to manipulate his milieu to tell the world that he was no fool to their masquerade. After Peter’s family filed a custody, Cole decides to use the Circle of Justice to his advantage to get out of jail. “ ‘Usually the jail sentence, if there is one, is reduced under Circle Justice.’