Moon Bear by Gill Lewis – review

Set in a bile-harvesting farm in Laos, this grown-up story of a boy and his bear is utterly convincing
moon bear sanctuary
A bear feeds on leaves after being released into a bear sanctuary. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP

Bears in children's books tend to be cuddly and good-hearted; they eat marmalade sandwiches, befriend small pigs and wear yellow-checked trousers. (Or, in books for older readers, they drink heavily and wear armour, but they are still on our side.) Real bears are scary. They are big, strong, fast and notoriously bad-tempered. Few people survive an encounter with a wild bear.

But nothing an animal can do to a human compares with what people have devised to do to them. If you know anything about international animal welfare, seeing the distinctive white crescent on the chest of the Asian black bear – also called the moon bear or white-chested bear – on the cover of Gill Lewis's new book will tell you what you are in for.

Moon Bear is set in Laos. In south-east Asia there are bear farms where the creatures are kept in small cages and their gall-bladders regularly "milked" for bile, which means big money in Chinese medicine.

When Tam first encounters a moon bear close up, it's a cub whose mother has gone in search of food. He and his friend Noy are trying to capture the cub to sell it, but it's not clear that either of them know what it would be used for. Their money-making mission is aborted by the return of the mother bear, and they are lucky to escape alive. But back home, they find they have other things to worry about; their whole village is being cleared to make way for a dam.

Their new homes are certainly more comfortable and there is even talk of electricity and TV for all. They have fields to work, full of stones and weeds, and Tam is helping to clear one when an unexploded bomb, dropped by the US in the "secret war", kills his father.

It's that life-changing event that sends Tam to Mekong to make money for his mother and little sisters. He is told that he is going to work on "a farm" but has no idea what that might mean in a city. It's not long before he is introduced to the horrific conditions of a bile-harvesting farm run by a James Bond-type villain known as The Doctor. Tam's job is to clear the mess caused by the captive bears below their cages.

The only bright spot in Tam's life is Kham, the son of the people he is rooming with, who proves a better friend then Noy ever was. Kham is essential in helping Tam when the farm acquires a bear cub who still needs milk. And yes, it is the one the boys tried to steal at the beginning of the book (though I'm not convinced how Tam can be so sure of this).

Looking after a bear cub is a demanding task and these scenes are among the best in the book. The bond between bear and boy grows as the cub, now called Sôok-dìi or "Luck", imprints on Tam. And Tam determines to save him.

Gill Lewis is a vet. I can't imagine she treats many bears in Somerset, but she writes an utterly convincing story of ursine – and human – behaviour. She has said she wants to upset her readers; well, mission accomplished. But this reader was very satisfied by The Doctor's comeuppance. Sometimes fiction can achieve what you'd like to see actually happen; and the book gives information about how to help the real bears.

Mary Hoffman's Stravaganza: City of Swords is published by Bloomsbury