“Fall seven times, stand up eight.- Japanese Proverb.” This quote shows how Cole had failures in his life but more success. Cole shows a lot of change throughout the book and this quote displays this because his failure shaped his behaviour. Each time he messed up, he learned from it, you make a mistake, and you make a success out of it.
When he was instigating the fight with the Spirit Bear that he couldn’t win. He ignored the thistles as the bear sank its teeth into his thigh, lifting him like a rag doll. Cole’s stomach churned as he swung his knife wildly. Each time he stabbed the bear, its powerful jaws clamped harder. Cole felt his pelvis crack, his body went weak and the knife slipped from his hand. When Cole was lying on the ground after the mauling be realized that he wanted to live and he didn’t want to
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He tried to make out where they might now be among the fallen and twisted branches. He squinted harder, but all he could see was black. What had happened to the baby birds? Mustering all of his strength, he raised his head, and with a weak and pinched voice he called into the darkened branches, “Are you okay?” Since he had been on the island Cole had been changing, he developed feelings for the baby sparrows and he worried if the storm had thrown them from their nest and killed them. Later he found them first one, then two and a third and fourth- four lifeless baby sparrows, scattered in the short grass where they had been thrown from their nest. Matted fuzz covered the twisted little bodies. Two had died with their big yellow beaks open as if searching for food. The other two lay facing their nest, their necks reaching out. Even in death, the sparrows had strained towards the nest. Cole was jealous of the sparrows because in their last moments they had tried going back to the nest. Cole remembered that he didn’t have a real home, a home was supposed to be somewhere you could be