The Ephraim Chronicles

by Lee Nelson

In 1923, Frank Clark headed into the wilderness to trap Old Ephraim, the most notorious grizzly the Utah mountains had ever seen. Ephraim literally waded through herds of sheep and cattle, as his powerful paws broke legs and backs and slung entrails in every direction. Defying the herdsman who invaded his historical domain, he overturned their steel traps, and dared theim to come get him with an impunity unparalleled in the history of the American West. What Clark didn't know was that Ephraim had a friend in, Danny Evans, who grew up with the grizzlies to become an elusive raider himself, until he was arrested by the law, schooled by an atheist, and courted by a stunning, young prophetess, while driven to find himself and the father he never knew. This is the story of a bear and a boy, and the forces that push them to the brink of tragedy and self-discovery.

180 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

About the author

Lee Nelson's historical novels have sold hundreds of thousands of copies since his first novel was released in 1981. Nelson has also published a score of non-fiction works including the top-selling Beyond the Veil series.
Nelson is widely respected for his historical research which includes killing a buffalo from the vack of a galloping horse with a bow and arrow.
Nelson was born in Logan, Utah, but spent most of his childhood in California. After serving an LDS mission in Germany, he earned a bachelor's degree in English and a Masters Degree in Business, both from Brigham Young University. He was a speech writer in Philadelphia and a car dealer in Montana before beginning his career as an author.
Lee lives on a small farm in central Utah. His hobbies include team roping, big game hunting, and finding and exploring ancient Indian ruins.

Reviews

[Kamber · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ephaim Chronicles is a super good book I could not stop reading. Its an all around good book with adventure and Heart break. It uses emotion like no other book does. This book is a definite reread I love this book so much.

[Kaleigh L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ephraim Chronicles, by Lee Nelson is about a little boy who gets in a car accident with his mom. His mom dies but the little boy named Danny doesn’t. Danny wanders off and finds some hibernating bears. Danny saw the bear cub and named him Ephraim. Ephraim and the Mother bear take care of Danny. One of the times that the mother bear goes hunting for food a hunter sees her and shots her. Danny and Ephraim have to live on their own and take care of each other they also have to find food for themselves. One day a hunter finds Danny and takes him to go live in the city. Danny ends up living with a person he doesn’t know but then he gets to know the person he has to live with. Also Danny ends up having to go to school, but he gets really smart and learns to be a real human boy.

This book is worth spending time reading because it is a really good book, it's not too hard to read, it is a really fun book to read, and it is easy to understand what you are reading, also because you get lots of different emotions from all the different characters in the book. The author did a really good job at writing the book. The way the author presents the world the characters live in is really good. I think that the way the characters are written and act in this book is really good. In some parts of the book it makes me feel kind of sad but in other parts of the book it makes me feel happy. I think that all the parts in this book a necessary because if you didn’t have all the parts then you wouldn’t have all things that make this book a really good book. I thought that this book was a really interesting book because it told a really good story, like when two people go into Danny's tent and finds his work.

The theme for this book is that things aren't always as bad as they seem. When Danny first finds the bears he thinks that the bears are going to eat him or hurt him. But the Bears end up helping Danny instead of eating him or hurting him, so it wasn’t as bad as Danny thought it would be. Also when Danny first goes to the city and to school he thinks it's going to be bad but it was actually good and Danny ended up liking it. This is a really good book to read.

[Claire Maloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the beginning Danny and his mom go for a drive and get a car crash. His mom dies and he wanders off and find a bear who he named Ephraim. Ephraim's mom takes care of him and also her cub, she feeds him so he is safe. When she goes hunting for food, a hunter kills her and Danny and Ephraim are left alone. Someone finds Danny in the mountains and takes him to the city. He goes to school and learns to be a real boy. A hunter goes out to find Ephraim and Danny goes to warn him. The hunter tells him Ephraim is to strong.
Ephraim and Danny have some similarities, but also some differences. For example, they both act like bears. They both were raised by the mom bear. Also, they both eat the same food, lamb, meat, etc. But Ephraim is an actual bear, while Danny is a human. Ephraim stays in the forest and Danny goes to the city with the cops. And Ephraim hunts and Danny tries to hunt but mostly fails. So as you can see they have some things in common.
I really liked how in the end Danny tells everyone his story. Ephraim was Danny's best friend, which I thought was cool of him. And, the mamma bear cares for Danny as her own. Although, I didn't like how the mamma bear gets hunted down and dies. Or how Danny's mom dies in the car crash. Also, when the people take him to the city and he leaves Ephraim, that wasn't my favorite part either. But this was a good book and if you like books about friendship, trust,etc? You should read this.

[Joe Garvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a fun easy read. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

[Nicole Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don’t judge a book by its cover!!! When I bought this book for my son I thought it would be an adventurous, informational story about Old Ephraim. We’ve loved the author’s other books & we were excited to read this one as a family. My kids have been interested in learning more about the bear their grandpa had told stories about. The book was definitely adventurous BUT definitely not true! Not any of the parts about a little boy living in a den with a hibernating mama bear & bear Cub & living off the mom’s milk were believable. We laughed a lot though!!! Then the mama bear adopts him as her own instead of killing him. I had to remind my kids several times this wouldn’t really happen in the wild & cuddling with a bear doesn’t sound as cozy & fun as it sounds when you realize bears have tons of ticks, fleas, & dingleberries hahaha!!! This was just WAY too far fetched for me. The only true part we learned about Old Ephraim was at the very end.

[Ehmree Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Danny is just a small boy, 5 years old actually. His life is pretty rough. First him and his mom were driving to Logan. To get away from his drunk Dad. It was Winter so the road was Super Slick and Icy. And with one wrong turn there car slid and tumbled down the mountain side killing his mother. He climbed out of the mangled car and started to walk around. He was trying to find the road, but he was going the wrong way. He found him self at the mouth of a cave. He slide his way in. It was warm in the cave, but he realized there was a mama bear and her cub hibernating. He needed to get out, but the entrance was covered in ice and he couldn't climb out. He eventually gets so hungry that he sneaks over to the bear and drinks it's milk! once the Bear wakes up she is used to having two mouths to feed so she takes Danny as her own. To survive Danny starts steeling from hunting camps. Once he gets caught. instead of taking him to jail they send him to live with the professor. Now he has to go to high school.
Don't judge people before you know them. Everyone thought that Danny was crazy at the high school. No one believed he survived in the mountains since he was 6. They didn't believe that he had a pet bear or even lived with one. Once they got to now him better they started to realize that he wasn't lying after all. They kind of started to like Danny.
I like how Danny got to live with bears and pretty much had no rules. And when he was little his friend told him that She had a dream. In the dream the two were married. Then Danny left. When he went to high school he met her there again. I don't like how his mom dies. And how other things die.

[Brandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot diagram of the Ephraim Chronicles I was a younger boy (about the age of six) named Danny Evans was on the road with his mother on their way to Wyoming. The road was very icy am his mother over corrected so tumbled off of the cliff. His mother was killed in the accident but he climbed out of the broken car and found a grizzlies den with a mother and her cub. The cub a mother excepted him and they became friends. Danny ended up living with them and when Mountain men come things get crazy. The rising action is one Danny is talking to the mountain man and hunting with the grizzlies. The claimant is probably one Ephraim is attacking Frank Clark. The falling action is one the author is talking to Danny in real life. Resolution is that Ella and Danny get married and have a happy life.

The theme for this book would probably be that every cloud has a silver lining/there everything has a bright side, You just have to look at it right. The evidence for it is that when Joanne died, Ephraim and Danny found a way to survive and looked at the bright side of everything. Another way is that even after he had to go back to the city he found many ways to have a good time. Even after Ella was mad at Danny, Danny made it up to her and they bonded back together.

What I really like about this book is how creative it is in plot, and how it is very dynamic in its ways of looking at Mormons. The things that I did not like about this book is that it is not very stellar when it comes to characters changing very much that is why I like Ella. I have loved this book so much and I would definitely recommend it to a friend or family member.

[Emma Atkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book starts pretty sad and depressing but it gets better, I promise, first, Danny (the main character at six years old) tragically gets in a car wreck in the winter with his mother in the middle of the rocky mountain range left stranded not knowing what to do. He decides to go and explore because there is nothing else to do. He meets a cub and his mother and the kind bear takes him in as her own. The family of "bears" meet struggles and problems occur forcing Danny to be seperated from them. He meets the real world at age 16 and finds that it is very, very different.
This book really taught me to except people as they are. The kindness of the mama bear and the willingness of Ephraim (baby bear) to except him into his life shows this. Ella, the girl of Danny's dreams is such a great example of kindness and expectance because she doesn't judge Danny like everyone else, she didn't all the way hate him after she found out he was Atheist, and she helped him with things that she knew were important to Danny. That is a great example of expectance.
I really, really, REALLY liked this book because of the adventure and cliffhangers! I just never wanted to stop reading it! I also loved this book because it was kind of a history book but it really didn't feel like that at all! The things that I didn't like about this book were things that I couldn't change. Things like; Frank Clark being so evil to want to kill Ephraim and his sweet mother. And that Danny changed so much from being this awesome mountain guy to this guy that drinks and sits in the back of someone's truck. I would most definitely recommend this book to anyone that needs a new book to read.

[Wyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the begining of the book danny Evans leaves his home in wyoming with his mom to live with his grandma. While they are driving there in a snowstorm there car crashes and his mother dies. So six year old Danny tries to find help but he falls into a den with a mother grizzly and her cub. He drinks the mothers milk and the mother bear takes care of him. and he makes friends with the cub and names him Ephraim later the mother named Joni gets killed and Danny and Ephraim kill sheep and eat them raw all the time until Danny goes to jail. Later he gets out and has to live with professor Nibley. Then he goes to high school and gets a girlfriend named Emma Cowley. Later he goes back to the woods and finds out that Ephraim got shot by Frank Clark. Danny goes back to his girlfriend and gets married in the temple.
As humans we have a tendency to make friends with animals like they are family. At the beginning of the book it talks about Joni and her two boys (Danny and Ephraim).(Nelson 28). Also he calls Ephraim his brother when he is in jail(Nelson 87). When Danny finds the girl she said he took care of her.(Nelson ) Ephraim treated her like family.
I liked the book because the theme is good. The mountains setting was a good setting too. But what I didn't like is how Danny drinked beer with the football players

[Missy · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a child I grew up listening to my dad tell the story of Old Ephraim, the famous grizzly bear in Cache Valley. I came across this book at Deseret Industries and had to read it, especially since it was written by Lee Nelson, an author I loved growing up. It's the story of a boy and a bear brought together. However, the book was not that well written. I was quite disappointed in the writing, although the part in the story of the bear being killed by Frank Clark was very much how I remembered hearing it. It does say on the back cover that a couple of names have been changed and that left me wondering if perhaps some of the rest of the story was true.

[Meagan O · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. Well written. Pissed me off. I just hate men. The men who destroy everything. Men who hunt and kill. Men who think they own everything and they should get their way. Men who farm animals in the mountains and expect their buisness to thrive and they should kill all preying animals like they shouldn't be there. Hello! It's like saying to the animals-"Here is dinner. Come and get it!" Stupid men. I wish they bear could grab a shot gun and kill all the stupid men that violated his territory. Oh and I hate stupid people who tell a person how to be.

[Dwight · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read with a good message of hope for a miracle boy and Professor who adopts the boy and teaches him. But in the end, they both learn there is more to life... there is a purpose for events that occur in their lives.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was awesome! My daughter begged me to read it after she did. At first I put it off but now I'm glad I finally checked it out and read it. It's an easy read and captivating. The fact that it's based on a true story is what makes it awesome.

[Genneal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesom

[Shanae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and easy reading. My 10 year olds loved it.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My teachers relitive wrote this book it's grate!

[Whitney Christen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book!

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read. I really couldn't put it down. I really liked how Danny had to figure things out for himself, like we all do. I'm definitely going to have my 14-year-old read it.